GITEX AFRICA 2023. EVENT OVERVIEW

Industries /

CREATING A BOLDER FUTURE FOR AFRICA TOGETHER

GITEX AFRICA 2023 is the first edition of grand event in Africa innovative development field. It was held from May 31 to June 2, 2023, in Marrakech, Morocco. The Digital Summit was under high patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, under auspices of Morocco Digital Transition and Administrative Reform Ministry and was organized by Digital Development Agency (ADD) and Kaoun International Ltd. GITEX AFRICA 2023 was affiliated with GITEX GLOBAL based in Dubai

GITEX AFRICA 2023 took place in the global hub of Morocco and represented EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) region of 2.5 billion people. The exhibition featured 900 leading companies and start-ups in fields of IT, telecommunications, innovation, technology, digital transformation from 128 countries, including Latin America, Japan, and Australia, and more than 32,000 technical and business leaders

Africa as the second largest continent was represented by Morocco, Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Senegal, Algeria, and other countries. Moreover, Africa has been recognized as one of leading digital economies in the world. Technology investments in Africa are projected to grow from $115 billion to $712 billion over next 25 years

Funds and investors from all over the world presented investment and start-up support programs. Participants and Morocco Government, represented by the Head of Morocco Digital Transition and Administrative Reform Ministry, signed several agreements on joint work to develop country and continent digital economy

Morocco Government took an active part in GITEX AFRICA 2023. Participants received consultations from Government Departments, negotiated at the highest level. Morocco Government expressed extreme interest in society digitalization and confirmed that it is open to various proposals that will help develop country’s economy

Also, country’s leading universities, such as Al Akhawayn University, took part in the exhibition. They strove to be leaders in preparing future technology developers ready to interact with outside world challenges

The most inventive start-ups presented at GITEX AFRICA 2023 have become winners of extraordinary Supernova Challenge. They received a combined prize of $100,000. This is the largest prize ever distributed in African Startup Competition. This competition highlighted winners from following areas of development:

Undoubtedly, for companies working in technology field and especially for start-ups, it is extremely important to decrease costs of creating a product and reducing time to bring it to market. Accordingly, it is important to ensure sufficient funding from banks, private investors, foundations, and state. These questions were of great concern to GITEX AFRICA 2023 participants

EBRD Bank as one of the potential investors presented its exposition. It finances start-ups and small businesses around the world on the terms of syndicated loans. In Morocco, bank supports energy, finances private enterprises, participates in infrastructure reform and in development of non-state financing

High-tech companies from Russia also participated in GITEX AFRICA 2023. There were 23 start-ups from Moscow under patronage of Moscow Export Center of Moscow Entrepreneurship and Innovative Development Department https://moscow-export.com/ and 8 start-ups from St. Petersburg under patronage of St. Petersburg Committee on Industrial Policy, Innovation and Trade https://cipit.gov.spb.ru/

Common goal of all Russian companies was to enter North African market, in particular Morocco. Some of them are already actively working with African countries (Algeria, Mauritania), and some are only going to enter and conquer African market. The main form of proposed cooperation was partnership with African IT developers

Russian companies presented new technological developments using artificial intelligence in areas of: Agriculture (Crop Production), Telecommunications, IT Technologies, Mobile Applications, Web Development, Cloud Technologies, Computer Engineering, IT Integration, Data Processing Centers, E-Commerce, Robotics, Medicine (Assistive Technologies), Business Processes, Management Consulting, Data Science Training, Children’s Education, Entertainment Industry, Tourism

Russian participators held meetings with African governments, central banks, universities, African IT companies. As results of participation, they have agreed about cooperation with African companies, industry associations and state structures of Morocco. For example, Moscow company Web3 Tech www.web3tech.ru, a leading developer in blockchain technologies and products field, signed a memorandum of understanding with Moroccan IT company DIGIUP, which is engaged in digital signature and cryptography technologies, to create a joint technological solution. And “Robotrack” project from St. Petersburg www.dignatera.com demonstrated its educational complexes and attracted considerable interest from visitors

In general, Russian IT companies were ready to promote to Africa solutions that have successfully proven themselves in Russian economy and were also able to change them to meet African market needs. They can train local specialists and pass on product expertise to them. Obviously, this initiative will help develop economic ties between Russia and Africa in the long term

It can be safely summarized that GITEX AFRICA 2023 goal “intensive and result-oriented interaction between public and private sectors on digital economy various issues” has been achieved. The first issue was one of the best in history of Africa and Morocco. It revived, supported, and developed interest of investors, entrepreneurs, IT developers in future of continent as a promising big start up in digital economy

Next edition of GITEX AFRICA will be held May 22-24, 2024, in Marrakech www.gitexafrica.com. Don’t miss out, join the future of continent, and make your dreams come true!

Scroll to Top
× SMV