The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat has opened the ninth edition of the IDC Egypt CIO Summit, organized by the International Data Corporation (IDC). The event has been held under the patronage of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and in collaboration with the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA), under the theme “Enabling the Digital Economy’s Leaders”. It was attended by ITIDA CEO Ahmed Elzaher, IDC Group Vice President Jyoti Lalchandani, and 170+ chief information officers (CIOs).
IDC Egypt CIO Summit sheds light on Egypt’s dynamic digital transformation and the growth of digital economy, which continue to expand at an unprecedented rate, driving the digitization of solutions and services for citizens and employees of the public and private sectors in different industries.
In his opening address, Talaat highlighted the significance of the Summit in enabling a productive dialogue among the actors of the information society, including the government, international and national companies, startups, and civil society organizations (CSOs). The event aims to produce recommendations that help the government create an enabling environment for international and national companies to expand in Egypt, export digital services to countries around the world, and create more job opportunities for young people, he added.
The challenge that governments and policymakers face today is to meet citizens’ growing demand for efficient digital government services, stated the ICT Minister. In Egypt, he remarked, the Digital Egypt strategy has been adopted. Its core is to accelerate digital transformation in all state sectors, remove digital illiteracy, build digital capacity, and foster digital innovation. The ICT Minister added that mega national digital transformation projects are implemented in cooperation with different sectors, such as universal health insurance, and in collaboration with universities, including for building digital learning management systems and digitizing cultural content in Egypt.
Talaat stated that in 2020, MCIT launched a beta version of the Digital Egypt platform, www.misr.gov.eg, to deliver digital public services. The number of digital services provided through the platform has been growing, reaching 170, so far. Moreover, a government innovation lab is being established. Startups, through the lab, will be invited to innovate and develop applications to improve citizens’ access to government services, he added.
Another pillar of the Digital Egypt strategy is building digital capacity, noted the ICT Minister. The training budget increased 25-fold, and the number of trainees grew 55 times the number trained by MCIT five years ago.
Talaat pointed to the opportunities that international cooperation allows to accelerate the strategy. Cooperation includes the partnership with GovStack, led by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to address the challenges that governments face when building scalable, coherent systems that enable the achievement of social and economic development.
Concluding his speech, the ICT Minister called on CIOs to advance innovation and entrepreneurship, use emerging technologies such as AI and IoT to develop solutions to societal challenges, and strengthen strategic partnerships and cooperation on national and international levels.
IDC Egypt CIO Summit 2023 covered several topics, including efforts to accelerate digital transformation, ways to create sustainable value in digital societies, application development strategies, development of AIOps strategies and practices, and effective hybrid cloud deployment, which combines services of public and private clouds, among other topics.
For his part, Elzaher highlighted that the Egyptian IT sector is experiencing an unprecedented boom owing to digital transformation, which spurred growth in the sector and expedited digitization and the creation of unmatched technological solutions and services in different sectors. The IT sector is a key player in improving the competitiveness of the Egyptian economy, Elzaher noted, adding that exporting IT-enabled products and services through outsourcing boosts Egypt’s digital exports.
ITIDA is committed to supporting companies specializing in embedded systems, electronic design, and R&D services to increase Egyptian exports and enhance Egypt’s competitiveness in value-added services, further driving the growth of the knowledge economy, stated Elzaher.
IDC Egypt CIO Summit has been serving as a leading platform for ICT experts in Egypt since 2015. This year’s summit is attended by a large number of international and national ICT companies.
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