Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat has said that cooperation is taking place with all state agencies to facilitate the establishment and operation of start-ups, including cooperation with the Ministries of Education and Higher Education, to include entrepreneurship and self-employment skills within the curricula of universities and schools.
He explained that a package of legislative amendments that facilitate the establishment of these companies has been initiated, including making the minimum capital of a one-person company when establishing the company only EGP 1,000 instead of EGP 50,000 and work is also being done to establish a system for establishing companies remotely, as this was announced in the economic conference, and the digital system is currently being built that enables young people to establish the company by applying through the Digital Egypt platform.
He pointed to the increasing growth in the number of startups in Egypt, as well as the growth in the number of Egyptian startups that were able to attract investment deals.
This came in his speech during the opening of the activities of the second edition of the Techne Summit for Technology and Entrepreneurship in Cairo, which is held under the auspices of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA).
Talaat pointed out that the activity of entrepreneurship is one of the pillars of the huge economies of developed countries, as the strength of this industry worldwide is about more than $3trn.
It is worth noting that the second edition of the Techni Summit will be held in Cairo over two days at the National Museum of Civilization. It includes 9 different tracks: creative technology, technological empowerment, e-commerce, educational technology, financial technology, health technology, investment, advertising and business academy for emerging projects, in addition to two competitions for entrepreneurial projects, 10 workshops presented by professionals and experts, and 5 discussion sessions.
Talaat said that supporting the entrepreneurship sector and startups is one of the pillars of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology strategy, which is keen to spread the culture of entrepreneurship and support digital innovation in all governorates through the deployment of Egypt’s digital creativity centres.
He explained that the establishment of Egypt’s digital innovation centres is an embodiment of the Egyptian state’s interest and awareness of the importance of the entrepreneurial economy and support for startups, pointing out that the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has started implementing the Egypt Digital Innovation Centres project according to a set of determinants, which is not starting in Cairo, where 6 centres have been established, including 4 centres in Upper Egypt in Aswan, Qena, Minya, and Sohag, in addition to the establishment of a centre in each of Menoufia and Mansoura, then establishing a centre in Cairo and Ismailia.
He added that the second determinant is the establishment of centres inside or near universities in order to facilitate access for young people, and to benefit from faculty members to participate in training activities in the centres.
The third determinant is the use of international expertise to manage these centres to transfer this knowledge to Egypt and to direct the attention of investors around the world to invest in emerging companies in Egypt. He added that 120 people have been trained to manage incubators and entrepreneurship centres to rely on local competencies in managing centres in the governorates.
