BIZTECH AFRICA in an article on a forthcoming Smart Cities Summit to be held in Algiers towards the end of this month introduced it as innovation & entrepreneurship ever-increasing role in the MENA region being at the fore-front of development.
It reads thus:
Innovation and entrepreneurship play an ever-increasing role in growing Africa’s emerging technology ecosystem. According to research by the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator, over the past two years alone, Africa has seen the number of innovation hubs double. Whilst the big 3 cities – Nairobi, Lagos, Cape Town – have been dominating the Sub-Saharan growth narrative, the next wave of incubators are arriving from new ecosystem cities in North Africa. And the cities driving this growth, Casablanca, Cairo, Sousse and Algiers, are serious about generating sustainable operating models in the fast evolving ICT landscape to overcome core business challenges around viability, future-proofing the business and most importantly, producing continuous success stories.
Funding in North Africa is shifting from relying on public spending
According to the Disrupt Africa Tech Start-ups Funding Report 2017 , funding in African tech start-ups surged 51% to reach $195 million in 2017, as compared to figures of the same period in 2016. When it comes to funding, the majority of Africa’s tech hubs are grant funded by Governments and foundations, however there has been a growth of social ventures and a trend toward for profit and self-funded endeavours to fast track growth.
Rabeh Arezki, Chief Economist for Middle East and North Africa Region (MNA) at the World Bank stated, “When it comes to sustainable funding, African tech hubs tend to focus on demand-driven service models that solve problems and support the specific needs of an ecosystem. To succeed, a modern innovation hub needs to pinpoint a niche in growth areas and deliver that proposition. Key areas ripe for development are start-ups looking at improving Internet infrastructure, payment systems and education. These are the types of businesses we see succeeding.”
Eric Chan, Digital Investment Expert, Xona Partners remarked, ‘What’s important is that we are seeing the gaps in infrastructure that impact technology development, digital entrepreneurship, and innovation closing. What’s powerful is that technology hubs are facilitating the development of that infrastructure. A lot of hubs are driven by forward thinking, young entrepreneurs who are looking to improve their skillset. The hubs are filling those skill gaps which will only continue to progress the development of the local ecosystem in a positive way.’
Algiers has been claiming a highly favourable investment climate and hosting major regional events like the upcoming Global Smart Cities Technology and Investment Summit on June 27-28 2018, where 4,000 smart city leaders from around the world will discuss how smart technology and ecosystems, smart data and sustainability and the Government’s role in stimulating new technology are changing the landscape. Founder of Smart City Algiers, Fatiha Slimani said “Algiers smart city project is in a way our commitment to develop our city based on principles of durability, sustainability and innovation. We’re trying to find solution to what we call – the cascading technology trap – where technology moves way faster than policy makers’ decision making.”
Whilst awaiting this Algiers Smart Cities Summit, we would propose an article’s of Construction Week 2 imbedded videos posted on June 16th, 2018 on what is going on mostly in the Gulf region of the MENA’s east sprinkled with some news arising from Africa.
Smart city concepts are gaining traction in the Middle East.
A study by Report Buyer states that smart city initiatives are gaining traction in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region due to increasing rates of urbanisation that have been placing pressure on city services. According to the United Nations, the urban population in the region increased from more than 20% in 1960 to about 45% by the end of 2015.
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