The General Division of Digital Economy and Technology of the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce (FEDCOC) held an open meeting with the companies that will be participating in the Web Summit scheduled to run from 1 to 4 November in Lisbon, Portugal. The meeting was chaired by Khalil Hassan Khalil — Head of the General Division for Digital Economy — a number of board members, a representative from the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA), and the heads of companies participating in the exhibition, according to a press release issued by the division on Tuesday. During the meeting, the participating companies were directed to the importance of the exhibition for emerging companies, as it is one of the most prominent exhibitions in which the division participates with the support of the ITIDA and within the framework of the division's keenness to expand the base of beneficiaries of companies. FEDCOC President Ibrahim Al-Araby said that this participation is considered the largest for Egypt in the history of the exhibition sessions, as the number of participating companies increases year after year with the support of the General Division for Digital Economy and the ITIDA. For his part, Khalil explained that this participation is the third consecutive pavilion for Egypt in this exhibition, which is concerned with emerging companies and entrepreneurs, adding that the division participated last year with a large delegation of 26 companies. This year, the Egyptian pavilion includes a group of 15 emerging tech companies exhibiting at the conference, in addition to 11 other visiting companies. Additionally, the pavilion will feature five emerging tech companies in the growth stages and 10 companies in the initial stages of testing their products in the market. Khalil added that the Web Summit includes more than 90,000 visitors from more than 160 countries and 1,200 speakers, as well as more than 850 investors in the field of technology, and its innovation is presented by more than 1,500 start-ups around the world. Furthermore, he said that Egypt is witnessing a boom in the field of entrepreneurship, with start-ups based on technological innovation achieving unprecedented growth rates due to the increasing interest by investment funds, financial institutions, and organisations specialised in sponsoring, incubating, and accelerating businesses and innovative emerging projects. This comes in parallel with the spread of the culture of entrepreneurship and self-employment among Egyptian youth and in light of the distinguished government support that this sector enjoys from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, which in turn pumps huge investments in this regard, especially in the initiatives of the General Division for Digital Economy and Technology. The investments are used to support tech companies and implement a variety of specialised technological and administrative training programmes for them, as well as display technological innovations in local and international exhibitions, in addition to funding a localisation initiative that aims to automate 400,000 merchants.
