The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat has participated in the opening session of the “Government Services Forum: A Dialogue on the Future of Government Services” as a guest of honor, as part of the World Government Summit (WGS) 2023.
The Forum brought together leaders from the public and private sectors from around the world to discuss the future of government services.
In his talk, the ICT Minister highlighted the state’s vision to build Digital Egypt and its efforts to develop the government services provided to citizens. He added that the Egypt government has taken steady steps towards achieving an ideal smooth digital transformation, based on two main pillars: the telecommunications infrastructure, and human development. He added that initiatives and programs for capacity-building in ICTs are being implemented.
The ICT Minister pointed out that Egypt has ranked first in Africa in fixed broadband internet speed. He added that it came among the countries of Group A on the World Bank’s 2022 GovTech Maturity Index (GTMI).
Talaat emphasized the role of digital transformation in building citizens’ trust in government institutions, especially with automating and digitizing operations and leveraging data analytics in decision-making.
Talaat underlined that the Digital Egypt platform has been launched and currently offers over 165 digital government services in different sectors. He revealed that the number of registered users on the platform reached around 7 million citizens, who conducted 30 million service transactions.
Talaat also referred to the Egyptian experience in providing services to citizens by developing and applying many principles and approaches of strategic design. He explained that Egyptian government innovation goes through several phases that start with providing intensive training and innovation workshops to develop the necessary capabilities; adopting a citizen-centric thinking and design approach where the digital lifecycle of citizens has been planned and designed according to all government services; implementing development designs; and performing data analytics to feed evidence-based and data-driven policy-making and decision-making processes.
In a similar vein, the ICT Minister met with the Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications in the UAE and Managing Director of the World Government Summit Organization Omar Sultan Al Olama. They discussed enhancing cooperation and exchanging expertise in AI and digital transformation.
During the meeting, Talaat highlighted that Egypt developed strategic plans to foster AI efficiently on a large scale to attain the best return in the public and private sectors. He stated that the Applied Innovation Center (AIC), established by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) three years ago, is exploring, designing, developing, and implementing pioneering scientific and tech-based projects in AI and other emerging technologies.
Talaat also looked forward to enhancing bilateral cooperation between the two countries by implementing research projects, especially in Natural Language Processing (NLP), agriculture, and health care.
For his part, Al Olama stressed that he is keen on cooperating with Egypt in AI, adding that he looks forward to cooperating in implementing joint NLP projects.
Furthermore, the ICT Minister met with Meta’s Vice President of Public Policy for Africa, the Middle East, and Turkey Kojo Boakye. They discussed enhancing cooperation in AI and Metaverse applications.
The meeting delved into the Digital Egypt strategy, Egypt’s efforts to achieve digital transformation, and proposed projects of cooperation in AI and Metaverse applications.
The meeting was attended by officials from Meta, including Public Policy Manager, Connectivity and Access EMEA Lotfi Elati and Head of Public Policy Shaden Khallaf.
Talaat also met with leaders from Google MENA. They reviewed opportunities for expanding Google’s business and establishing a service delivery center in Egypt. The meeting delved into Egypt’s plans to develop the data center industry, and opportunities of expansion in Google cloud services and data centers in Egypt.
The meetings were attended by the Assistant ICT Minister for Global Information Infrastructure (GII) Mohamed Nasr Eldin.
It is worth noting that the ICT Minister participated as a member of a high-level government delegation headed by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, in WGS 2023, in Dubai, where Egypt was invited as a Guest of Honor.
https://bit.ly/3IqObPM
WorldGovSummit WGS2023
وزارة الاتصالات وتكنولوجيا المعلومات-مصر
