French telecom company Orange has launched a digital centre in Tunis to provide training in coding school and wide-ranging support for startups, as well as guidance in start-up acceleration and investment in early-stage companies
The digital centre houses four strategic programmes under the same roof: the coding school, the FabLab Solidaire, Orange Fab and Orange Digital Ventures Africa.
The coding school is a freely accessible and totally free-of-charge technological centre that offers training and events for the community of young developers. It is particularly aimed at students, young graduates and entrepreneurs.
The FabLab Solidaire is a digital production workshop for creating and prototyping with digital equipment, such as 3D printers, milling machines and laser cutters.
Orange Fab is a startup accelerator with an aim to build national and international business partnerships with the Orange Group and the international Orange Fab network.
Orange Digital Ventures Africa is a US$55mn investment fund for financing innovative startups in Africa and the Middle East such as fintech, e-health, energy, edutech and govtech.
Alioune Ndiaye, CEO of Orange Middle East and Africa, said, “By the end of this year, we will set-up similar centres in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Jordan, Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone. From 2020 onwards, Morocco, Egypt and the rest of the countries in the Middle East and Africa region will have their own Orange Digital Centre.”
“Functioning as a network, these sites favour sharing experiences and expertise in a way that will benefit not just entrepreneurs but also students, young people with or without degrees, and young people undertaking a career change. We will, therefore, work in close collaboration with all our stakeholders, including governments and academics, to strengthen the employability of these young people and to encourage them to run businesses and to innovate,” he added.
Twenty-seven partner universities make up the system in Tunisia, alongside five centres in the region. Their aim is to offer access to and support for the best uses of networks to the largest number of people possible.
Thierry Millet, CEO of Orange Tunisia, explained, “Through our programme, 16,000 young Tunisians have been trained and given support with digital technologies, 1,800 have benefited from career change work experience courses, 800 secondary school students have been taught coding and 95 per cent of them have been employed in Tunisia or abroad.”
