The Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) organised the first event of its Roadshow series in the middle of the Nile Delta in Mansoura University. The roadshow comes as part of ITIDA's plan to promote the recently announced 2022-2026 Digital Egypt Strategy for the Offshoring Industry across the country. ITIDA has launched this series of events, which will be taking place across several Egyptian universities, to link young talents to the job market by identifying in-demand skills and inspiring graduates to join the booming offshoring sector. The event, held inside the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology's CREATIVA Innovation Hub at the heart of Mansoura University, is one of the actionable recommendations provided through the newly five-year offshoring strategy, which primarily aims to triple export revenues from digitally enabled offshoring services in addition to improving the overall cost competitiveness of Egypt's offshoring industry and attract more foreign direct investment through an attractive incentive scheme. The Roadshow featured the ministry and ITIDA's initiatives and training programmes to reach the maximum number of students and fresh graduates in different governorates and equip them with technology, language, and freelancing skills. CEO of the ITIDA Amr Mahfouz and President of Mansoura University Ashraf Abdel Basset along with a number of senior executives and CEOs of local and multinational companies — including Site Director at Sitel Ahmed Bahgat, Head of Care and _VOIS Egypt Centre Ramy Kato, and CEO of Raya Contact Centre Ahmed Refky, along with Valeo, Webhelp, Talabat, and ITIDA VPs — participated in the event. Mahfouz stated that the ITIDA plans to organise a series of events to promote the golden opportunities the sector offers and increase the inclusion of industry stakeholders, such as local universities, academics, and key industry players. "The aim of our roadshow series is to benefit Egyptian youths from the initiatives and grants offered by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and ITIDA, leverage the abundance of talent in each and every governorate, and ensure it has a fair chance to participate in our training programmes," he remarked. The event incorporated several workshops and seminars showcasing the available opportunities and the highly demanded career paths in the offshoring and BPO sector, among which are finance and accounting, human resources, procurement, and different business and IT services. "The new strategy includes detailed programmes and initiatives developed to reach youths across Egypt and to upskill them professionally, according to the demands of each geographical region and the highly demanded languages in the global market," Mahfouz added. For his part, Abdel Basset said that the fourth industrial revolution, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, acted as catalysts to technological development and accelerated digital transformation, which created unprecedented demand in digital skills and enriched the IT job market. He also pointed out that the CREATIVA Innovation Hubs were established in cooperation between the communications ministry and the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. Furthermore, he added that these centres support the Egypt 2030 Vision, which fosters innovation and entrepreneurship within universities and research centres, supports digital transformation, qualifies students for the job market through various training programmes, and accordingly creates diverse job opportunities. During the forum, the ITIDA also announced the launch of the 'Learn to Go Offshoring' programme (L2GO) — a free language skills programme that is part of its five-year Offshoring Strategy. The programme aims to attract more investments to the market by upskilling the talent pool in Egypt. It targets to train 10,000 students within one year on the most demanded languages — namely, English, French, and German — as well as soft skills, including project management, customer interactions, team leadership etc. The programme also enables trainees to obtain a B2 language level, which is the required level to work in the offshoring sector, according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). Moreover, it targets fourth-year university students in addition to fresh graduates. Furthermore, the ITIDA announced the official launch of the second edition of Egypt FWD, Egypt FWD 2.0. The new edition provides a number of technological disciplines designed to provide specialised technical training at various levels in the most demanded areas in the job market, such as web design and development, data analysis and cloud computing, machine learning, UX researching, React Developing, and digital marketing. Egypt FWD 2.0 aims to prepare students for the job market through fully digital freelancing training, agile management training, and career consultations. In addition to the training, students will have access to many freelancing and standard employment opportunities in the tech field. It is worth noting that the communications ministry launched the 2022-2026 Digital Egypt Strategy for the Offshoring Industry to unlock new growth potential in Egypt's well-established global IT service delivery and targets creating 215k new jobs.
