The Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Egypt, Amr Talaat has witnessed the signing of a cooperation agreement between Telecom Egypt and Nokia to build Egypt’s first Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure through Nokia Worldwide IoT Network Grid (WING).
The signing took place during the ICT Minister’s visit to Dubai, heading a high-level delegation, to participate in GITEX Global and Expo 2020. Telecom Egypt CEO and Managing Director Adel Hamed, and Middle East and Africa Vice President (VP), Cloud and Network Services at Nokia Henrique Vale signed the agreement.
WING will allow Telecom Egypt to provide IoT services to companies on a global scale at low prices, enabling them to leverage the IoT fast-growing market, capitalizing on Nokia multi-service model which includes a global IoT infrastructure and a pay-as-you-grow model.
Pursuant to the agreement, the two sides will launch joint marketing initiatives and expedite the development of IoT projects in Egypt, which will help automate projects and allow companies to reduce operation expenses, boost productivity, and roll out new services faster.
The signing ceremony was attended by the Assistant ICT Minister for Strategy and Implementation Sherine El-Guindy, the Assistant ICT Minister for Global Information Infrastructure (GII) Mohamed Nasr Eldin, the Head of Middle East and Africa (MEA) Market at Nokia Amr El Leithy, and senior officials from the company.
Furthermore, Talaat met with Tech Mahindra Senior VP and Head of MEA Ram Ramachandran. Tech Mahindra is one of the top 15 IT service providers globally. The meeting discussed cooperation with the company in contributing to the implementation of digital transformation projects in Egypt and the possibility of establishing a service center for the company in Egypt to serve customers in different markets around the world.
During the meeting, Talaat highlighted that Egypt is carrying out many projects to achieve the transformation into an integrated digital society as part of its vision to build Digital Egypt. The projects involve several opportunities to establish global partnerships to achieve digital transformation.
The ICT Minister underlined that Egypt attaches great importance to Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) since Egypt possesses all the success factors for such industry. He added that Egypt is a regional leader, occupies a remarkable position on the BPO global map, and is one of the top destinations where multinationals can expand their businesses and establish specialized centers. Talaat pointed out the efforts of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) to upskill and qualify youth to work in BPO and as freelancers.
Tech Mahindra is an Indian multinational company and a subsidiary of the Mahindra Group. The company is one of the fastest-growing brands worldwide.
The meeting was attended by the Consul General of Egypt to Dubai Ashraf Deeb, the CEO of the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) Amr Mahfouz, El-Guindy, ITIDA VP and Chairperson of the Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC) Hossam Osman, and Tech Mahindra VP and Region Head Srinivas Reddy.
Moreover, the ICT Minister met with Amazon Web Services (AWS) VP, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Isabella Groegor-Cechowicz. They discussed AWS plans to expand its business in Egypt and enhance cooperation in capacity building. They also reviewed MCIT and AWS collaboration in carrying out Practical Data Scientist Academy (MCIT-PDSA), a free professional training program in data science.
Mahfouz, El-Guindy, Nasr Eldin and Osman attended the meeting.
