Rania Al-Mashat, Minister of International Cooperation, has met with a group of Egyptian startups that specialize in a variety of areas, including customer identification programmes, electronic payment, used oil recycling, and insurance. The promising companies are expected to participate in the new Africa-France Summit, taking place this October in Montpellier, France, with the aim of revamping the relations between Africa and France.
Al-Mashat discussed with the participants their preparations for the Africa-France Summit, the different activities their companies undertake, and the stages that their development process goes through. The Minister was eager to listen to the challenges faced by the nascent companies during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the opportunities that they managed to leverage during the pandemic to grow their businesses, especially that COVID-19 equally posited severe challenges and invaluable opportunities for the tech-savvy services to capitalize on.
In commending the vital role played by entrepreneurs in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), The Minister reiterated the vitality of international events in transferring knowledge and exchanging expertise with other countries and cultures. This, in addition to highlighting the Egyptian startups’ role in pushing the frontiers of development in Egypt across a sundry of fields through innovative and solution-oriented ideas to combat development challenges.
Al-Mashat explained that the Egypt International Cooperation Forum (Egypt-ICF) held several panels and workshops to address the importance of innovation and financial inclusion in achieving sustainable development. Egypt- ICF’s workshop on “The Demographic Divide: Youth and Innovation for Transforming Africa,” shed light on the entrepreneurs’ key role in enhancing the continent’s development. Another workshop titled “Women in business: Supporting Female Entrepreneurship in Egypt” hammered on the importance of financial inclusion for women in promoting development.
The Minister identified the “Closing the Gender Gap Accelerator” as a tool that could pave the way for startups to play a role in bridging the gender gap in the labor market through public-private collaboration. Moreover, startups working in environmental protection and green transformation could as well find a propitious opportunity to grow in light of Egypt’s bid to host the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 27).
Ahmed Gomaa, Chairperson and CEO of Egypt Ventures, said that the total number of companies representing Egypt at the Africa-France Summit is 27 startups working in education, energy, smart cities, industry, financial services, trade, and logistics. Gomaa stated that 9 of the participating startups are supported either directly from Egypt Ventures or its affiliate accelerators, namely Falak Startups and EFG EV Fintech.
Representatives of the startups expressed their keenness to participate in the New Africa-France Summit, which represents a venue to benefit from the expertise in the entrepreneurial scene in France as well as in Africa, adding that the Summit allows for growing businesses in the African and European markets to capitalize on their experience harnessed through Egyptian markets while exploring the opportunities and challenges in foreign markets.
The Africa-France Summit will cover five key topics: citizen engagement, entrepreneurship and innovation, higher education and research, culture, and sports. The Summit shall bring together stakeholders to reinforce cooperation and envision future partnerships between Africa and France in various fields
Egypt Ventures is the first government-backed venture capital, as it was established by the Ministry of International Cooperation with the participation of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones and NI Capital. Since its establishment in 2017, Egypt Ventures has directly and indirectly invested in 174 startups, with an amount of EGP 275m through its accelerators EFG-EV fintech, Falak startups, and Flat6Labs.
