The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat has received the Ambassador of Cote d'Ivoire to Egypt Timothy Ezouan. They discussed strengthening bilateral ties between the two countries in ICTs, especially digital transformation.

The two sides underlined the depth of relations between Egypt and Cote d'Ivoire in different areas, especially ICT. They discussed implementing and putting into effect the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) inked between the two countries, the signing of which was witnessed by the presidents of the two countries, during President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s visit to Abidjan last April.

The MoU was signed by the ICT Minister and the Ivorian Minister of Digital Economy and Post. It provides for cooperating and exchanging expertise between the two countries in a number of ICT areas including digital transformation, cybersecurity and technology parks.

In addition, the two sides discussed enhancing bilateral cooperation in promoting technological innovation and entrepreneurship, and building capacities of the management teams of technology startups incubators and accelerators. This is in addition to collaborating to develop youth’s digital skills in advanced technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G.

Cooperation also includes encouraging young Ivorians to participate in the African App Launchpad (AAL) Egyptian presidential initiative, which aims to build capacities and qualify 10K young Egyptians and Africans to develop digital games and applications using state-of-the-art technologies, as well as promoting the establishment of 100 Egyptian and African technology startups.

Moreover, the meeting discussed enhancing collaboration between the two countries in digital transformation through exchanging knowledge and the best practices in digital identity, as well as supporting Cote d’Ivoire’s ICT infrastructure, collaborating to facilitate rendering digital services to citizens and promoting financial inclusion and e-payments.

At the end of the meeting, the Ivorian Ambassador invited the ICT Minister to participate in the 27th Universal Postal Congress, hosted in Cote d’Ivoire, on August 10-28.