By Dr. Hossam Osman, CEO of the Technology Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center
When technology or entrepreneurship articles are written about the next “Silicon X”, Egypt is always on the list. And it’s no wonder, there are hundreds and hundreds of startups, tens of co-working spaces and technology hubs, numerous accelerators and incubators operating here, and numbers are ever-increasing. That’s great news for Egypt’s economy.
As our local startup and IT ecosystem begins to mature, even as it continues to expand, the growing number of resources, mentor ship opportunities, partnerships and human capital across the whole system make it easier for new companies to launch and for existing companies to both scale up and succeed. This virtual cycle will gain a momentum that can spin off countless companies that will go on to contribute to the broader economy and help other sectors improve inefficiencies and grow.
We are working to help enable this at the Technology Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC), where our focus is on innovation and entrepreneurship in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) – an important contributor to the Egyptian economy.
That’s why the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and TIEC have partnered with GE to launch the ongoing GE Egypt Digital Innovation Challenge. Through this competition, we’re looking to support Egypt’s vision to build an innovative society that seeks to produce advances in science, technology and overall knowledge.
The challenge targets students, small and medium enterprises, entrepreneurs and everyone with a passion for software development to help solve key industrial challenges in the field of energy, healthcare and transportation.
By identifying effective solutions to local industrial challenges using Egypt’s homegrown ICT skill development, this competition fits many of our own objectives, including working with other stakeholders to leverage the ICT field to address existing national problems and to act as a catalyst to find synergies and solutions across government, the private sector, and academia.
With the close of submissions set for November 30, we hope to see many more entries, and look forward to announcing the winners in early 2017. But that will be only the beginning as we look forward to supporting their efforts to strengthen the Egyptian economy, support development and grow the ICT industry.
