The Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Amr Talaat, met today with 30
young entrepreneurs and distinctive ICT startup founders, within the framework of Startup Day event hosted by the
Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC) of the Information Technology Industry Development Agency
(ITIDA) in its premises in Smart Village.
The meeting targets communication with such companies and acknowledging their success,
either to attract investments or international funds to support their innovative ideas, or their embracement in
international business accelerators, such as the Investment Fund and 500 Startups accelerator located in Silicon
Valley in the US.
A number of these companies have been listed among the top startups in the Arab World,
Middle East and Africa, with some of them ranked first in top technological innovations and digital solutions
international competitions.
The meeting comprised an open discussion between the ICT Minister and young entrepreneurs,
where he stated that Egypt is utterly supporting entrepreneurship and spreading its culture, given its importance in
building a knowledge- and creativity-based economy. He asserted that the Ministry of Communications and Information
Technology (MCIT) is keen on fostering innovative entrepreneurs, building their capacities, and underpinning
startups through implementing programs and initiatives that target transforming their creative ideas into real-world
projects and creating an enabling environment for growing and expanding startups.
Talaat referred to the efforts that MCIT and its affiliates exert to promote
entrepreneurship and qualify distinct calibers in different technology fields, thereby increasing Egypt’s ICT
exports, and promoting competition on regional and global levels. He added that a national strategy for Artificial
Intelligence (AI) is to be implemented within three to five years, in collaboration with the Ministry of Higher
Education and Scientific Research.
The ICT Minster highlighted that the digital transformation projects serve as a great
opportunity for startups to cooperate with the major companies responsible for implementing these projects by coming
up with innovative technological solutions. He added that with the tendency to reach African markets, the
Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) is planning to host a forum to which it shall invite
African governments and companies, Egyptian companies innovating technological solutions, and funding agencies.
During the meeting, the young entrepreneurs presented their projects, the major challenges
they face, and their visions on the growth mechanisms of entrepreneurship projects in Egypt. Talaat invited them to
actively participate in the technological innovation communities, to be established in public universities, through
which entrepreneurs shall exchange their experiences, thus achieving integration among companies. This will help
grow business and facilitate communication through a digital platform for networking and creating contact points
between startups.
The ICT Minister called for forming a business committee that comprises youth
representatives, entrepreneurs, the National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA), and the Technology Innovation and
Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC). The committee shall submit within a week a report that proposes solutions to the
problems discussed during the meeting, and suggests ideas to overcome the potential obstacles facing a number of
entrepreneurship projects. Talaat said that the meeting shall be held periodically to achieve effective and direct
communication with young people and stakeholders.
Startup Day serves as a leading platform for promoting technological innovation and
entrepreneurship through establishing communication with distinct entrepreneurs, listening to their success stories,
sharing their experiences, celebrating them and shedding light on their successful entrepreneurial projects, with
their evolution as promising technology startups recognized by international institutions and specialized
international reports.
Deputy Minister for Human and Institutional Capacity Development and ITIDA Acting CEO, Hala
El Gohary, TIEC CEO and ITIDA Vice President, Hossam Osman, and a number of MCIT and TIEC officials attended the
event.
