Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Sky News: Future bright for Egypt's web-savvy


Online companies such as Google are seeking out web pioneers in Egypt to put their skills into business prospects.

Egypt's economy may have been damaged, but information technologies in the country have grown by a yearly average of 37 per cent.

The ministry of communications and information technology says it expects the industry in Egypt to be worth 2 billion U.S. dollars (USD) by 2013.

Internet giant Google is one of the many companies hoping to harness the talents of the Egyptian web savvy.

The company is running a nationwide internet entrepreneur competition with a reward of 200,000 USD for the pioneer with the most impressive web concept. Google has already whittled down the many applicants to just 50 budding entrepreneurs.

Head of Google's Public Relations for the Middle East and North Africa Maha Abou El Enain said most of the 4,000 applicants for the competition entitled 'Google Ebdae' (Google Creativity) came from rural communities.

She says the internet is key to Egypt's economic development.

'I think the internet is going to be a key driver as a catalyst to change in accelerating economies like Egypt, especially in its rebuilding process since the revolution,'' she told Reuters.

'Ten to twelve million users are coming online every single year in the Middle East,' she added.

No comments:

Post a Comment