Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Amr Talaat, held video talks with French Minister for Digital Transformation and Electronic Communications, Cédric O, on Tuesday.
The two ministers discussed ways to enhance Egyptian-French cooperation in a number of communications and information technology (CIT) fields. The talks focused particularly on capacity building, providing support for entrepreneurship, as well as research and development in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).
Talaat said that Egypt and France have already established constructive cooperation in the digital technologies field, as his ministry has in the last period concluded several agreements with French companies.
The agreements will see the implementation of projects in applied research, using AI technology, in a number of fields, most notably natural language processing, health, and automatic data extraction.
In a press statement on Tuesday, Talaat added that he looks forward to further joint cooperation in applied research between French companies and his ministry’s Center for Applied Innovation. He noted that there is further French cooperation set with the National Academy of Information Technology for Persons with Disabilities, through which global partnerships are sought to implement assistive technology to serve people with disabilities.
The two sides are also cooperating in the field of developing digital competencies. This is taking place with the French Faculty of Informatics and Advanced Technologies (EPITA) in the field of AI.
This is occurring alongside cooperation with French companies operating in Egypt to establish centres of excellence, cooperate in capacity-building, and prepare professionally trained human resources to work in global markets at a competitive cost.
Talaat said that his ministry’s plan to develop digital skills aims to provide training to over 100,000 workers in the technological fields in 2020. This will take place in cooperation with major local and international CIT companies and academic institutions, in addition to working to spread Egypt’s innovation centres across the country.
O praised the cooperation in CIT between the two countries, particularly during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. He noted that this period witnessed a development in joint cooperation on capacity building and support for entrepreneurship, and that the coming period will witness a growth in such work between the two countries.
