Bibliotheca Alexandrina has embraced the 9th edition of Techne Summit over the past four days, one of the leading entrepreneurial annual events in Egypt and the Mediterranean region, where entrepreneurs, officials, investors, and young people aspiring to kick off their careers meet in seminars, workshops, and networking events.
During his opening speech, Amr Talaat, Egypt’s minister of communications and information technology, asserted the efforts the state is exerting to enrich the entrepreneurial ecosystem, where he highlighted the incentives provided by the General Authority of Investment for both founders and investors.
“The General Authority of Investment is now working on launching a platform for establishing startups, where any citizen can remotely establish his startup with a capital of EGP1,000 ($32) with no set location required,” Talaat said in his remarks.
Last year, Egyptian startups raised almost $737 million, coming in third place in the Mena region after the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and ten months into this year, they raised $434.7 million despite the country’s economic downturn.
When asked about Egypt’s chance to compete with the two leading regional players, UAE and KSA, when it comes to attracting international investors and tech entrepreneurs, Minister Talaat asserted that Egypt is “well positioned” to be the region’s tech hub.
He also referred to the developments in Egypt’s infrastructure that have taken place over the past few years.
“Egypt has invested over EGP100 billion ($3.24 billion) in the past few years to strengthen our infrastructure network and to avail access to all the citizens to internet and technology,” the minister said, pointing out that Egypt is focusing now on providing training and building capacity of its workforce to ensure the continuous flow of talent.
