The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has adopted an ambitious strategy to build a digital Egypt, which aims at digital transformation and launching Egypt towards the future, as many initiatives and technical projects have been launched as well as plans to develop infrastructure to achieve this goal. Indeed, the fruits of these efforts have appeared in overcoming the repercussions of the Corona epidemic on society, which allows the information technology sector to remain the main engine of growth and the basic pillar of economic development.

In this symposium, Canada Egypt Business Council and the Egyptian Business Council for International Cooperation had the honor to host H.E. Dr. Amr Talaat; Minister of Communications and Information Technology discussing the topic “Egypt’s Digital Strategy … Opportunities and Challenges”.

In the opening remarks Eng. Motaz Raslan; on behalf of CEBC & ECIC; was pleased to welcomed our dear distinguished members, guests, ambassadors, the followers of the meeting via online live streaming, hoping that you will be with us by physical attending in our upcoming seminars, God’s willing… and his dear friend H.E. Dr. Amr Talaat. He began the speech saying that there is no doubt that the “Corona” crisis formed a new reality not only for Egypt but for the countries of the world and changed the patterns and behaviors of citizens and pushed them to transform and rely on digital services. Technology became the effective treatment to face the repercussions of this epidemic on all walks of life due to the conditions of the ban and fears of transmission. Certainly, this transformation created a great challenge for all state agencies and institutions, especially the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, to meet the needs of this new reality and coexist with it.

He added; in order to develop and modernize the telecommunications infrastructure, raise the efficiency of the Internet, and double its speeds 6 times in one year. About 30 billion pounds have been pumped to implement it during the past two years. To maintain the telecommunications sector’s position as the highest sector in the state, achieving growth rates by 16% during the current fiscal year, and increasing its contribution to the GDP to approach 5%.

Then he mentioned that there is a certain fact that our host, H.E. Dr. Amr Talaat always repeats (that the future will be for societies that are more capable of owning technology and that have young people who can adapt it to serve their society), so I adopted the strategy of building a digital Egypt, which is the cornerstone for transforming Egypt into a digital society. It also launched a package of initiatives and projects to train and qualify thousands of human cadres in various disciplines to create a generation of competencies capable of achieving this strategy and reaching a strong digital society.

Then he continued saying that these fruits also appeared in many testimonies of international institutions with the performance and development of this sector, as Egypt advanced to 56^th place globally in the government readiness index for artificial intelligence compared to 111^th place in 2019 and also occupied the first place in the number of investment deals for emerging companies in the Middle East and North Africa. Egypt ranked 15^th out of 60 countries in the world in the “Global Service Locations Index” issued by the global consultancy “Kearney” for the year 2021 to maintain its supremacy and regional leadership in the Middle East and Africa. Certainly, there is a state of great optimism that the ICT sector is the main driver of the economy during the coming period and that it is moving at an accelerated pace to launch the Egyptian economy and move to a digital Egypt, but some challenges are facing the plans and ambitions of our guest today, on top of which are digital illiteracy and weak infrastructure in some regions.

Finally we thank H.E. for accepting the invitation and for our participation in the dialogue to tell us about the features and latest developments of Egypt’s digital strategy and the opportunities for private sector participation in this strategy then he gave the floor to H.E. Dr. Amr Talaat.

H.E. Dr. Amr Talaat; Minister of Communications and Information Technology, in his speech, Dr. Amr Talaat emphasized on the concerted efforts of state institutions, to build a digital Egypt, through which digital technologies are adopted, to develop and develop all sectors then explained that 60 digitized government services were launched on the digital Egypt platform, which was made available from other outlets, namely post offices, and government service centers; call center (15999); referring to the ministry’s cooperation with state agencies and institutions in implementing the project of moving the government to the new administrative capital to transform into a participatory, smart and not paperless government; He explained that a plan is being implemented to develop the Egyptian post offices and increase its branches to become an outlet for providing Egypt’s digital services and financial inclusion services in addition to postal services; Where 1,600 offices were developed and work is underway during the current year to develop 1,500 others, bringing the total number of developed offices to 3,100 out of a total of 4,000 offices nationwide.

Dr. Amr said that Misr Informatics University was established as the first specialized university; the first in Africa and the Middle East to achieve a qualitative leap at the level of youth in the telecommunications sector, and a professional master’s program is offered in technological disciplines in cooperation with prestigious international universities through the Digital Egypt Builders initiative. H.E. then added, that the university’s capacity is about 10,000 students, as well as the initiative of the Builders of Digital Egypt to provide a set of training programs through international universities and then training with 9 international companies to see the work management in these companies.

H.E. indicated that the government’s move to the capital will be a qualitative transition in the way the government works to be a paperless government, where the citizen will receive a service without obtaining papers to present it to another party, but it will be one government with one window, explaining that work cycles will be standardized within the ministries. We have 765 applications that will be transferred to the computing cloud, in preparation for moving to the administrative capital.

Dr. Amr Talaat explained that since 2019, we started the comprehensive health insurance system, which has been implemented in Port Said and is being spread in the rest of the governorates, and we are currently working in possible 73 university hospitals, pointing to the start of the remote diagnosis project for our families in remote areas in 150 health units. H.E. also added that the digital examination system has been launched with 27 universities in the faculties of medicine and science.

H.E. indicated that with regard to irregular employment, a bank account was opened at the Postal Authority, whose number reached about 2.5 million accounts, as part of the transformation into a cashless society.

Then the session was opened for questions and answers where many questions and suggestions were discussed and many attendees praised the ongoing efforts of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.