Partnerships, collaborations birthed at the GITEX Africa event
Hive collab and Dian partnership signing during the GITEX AFRICA Morocco 2024 event. Photo | Joan Salmon
What you need to know:
- It was a joyous moment as Uganda scooped several collaborations and one was when Ntakye Holdings signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Jubix from South Korea with the intent of working together on solar-integrated technology
They came, they saw, they conquered. That was the atmosphere at the recently concluded GITEX AFRICA Morocco 2024 event as start-ups and scale-ups, tech giants and countries sought partnerships and investors, depending on the need. The show that happened in Marrakech, Morocco from 29-31 May 2024 brought together tech giants, startups, scale ups and global leaders to cement and grow Africa's participation in the global tech movement.
It was a joyous moment as Uganda scooped several collaborations and one was when Ntakye Holdings signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Jubix from South Korea with the intent of working together on solar-integrated technology.
Canine Safaris, a Ugandan tour and travel company signed a partnership with a Korean AI company called Flitto, a multilingual company using AI to preserve culture by conserving as many local dialects as possible for easy translation. "With this, we will ably translate itineraries into different local languages. It is a big milestone and works in line with our agenda of extending our reach to different parts of the world," the company founder, Devine Itaagi said.
The icing on the cake was the partnership between Dain Leaders, a Korean company and Hive Colab. The latter is the umbrella organisation that facilitated the journey for many Ugandan tech start-ups to the GITEX AFRICA Morocco event. The partnership goes a long way to beef up the relationship between Uganda and Korea to grow their respective start-ups.
The parties shall promote exchange activities, based on their respective start-up and educational needs in various fields such as ICT, healthcare, and education but also participate in joint research and training, among other things.
Rest of Africa
It was a big win for Nigeria as well as the country, through the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), signed a Memorandum of Understanding with GITEX Africa to birth GITEX Nigeria. The signing gave Nigeria the authority to host the GITEX event in 2025. The event was witnessed by the Director General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa, and Trixie LohMirmand, the Chief Executive Officer of KAOUN International, the organizers of GITEX.
“My mandate is to accelerate economic diversification by enhancing productivity in critical sectors such as healthcare, education, and agriculture, through technological innovation. Therefore, bringing this kind of platform to Nigeria will open doors for us to export Nigerian technology to the world,” he said.
LohMirmand said Nigeria has several advanced start-ups and they are particularly interested that GITEX will be in Nigeria.
Ntake and Jubix partnership signing during the GITEX AFRICA Morocco 2024 event. Photo | Joan Salmon
“Nigeria has birthed several tech unicorns. We thus want to bring a unique formula that is befitting and aligned with Nigeria’s economic expectations for more opportunities for everyone and to deepen technological advancement in the country. That will connect Nigeria to GITEX Africa and GITEX Global to export to a new market of 44 countries, not forgetting Asia,” she said.
Senegal also got a slice of the partnerships cake as Sénégal Numérique signed an agreement with Elm, a digital solutions provider. Through this partnership, both parties intend to leverage their capabilities to foster collaboration in targeted markets. This will be achieved by creating and operating a digital archiving centre and developing the IT infrastructure to benefit government agencies in Senegal, among other things.
Big boys
On the other end, tech giants signed memorandums of understanding with one another for a greater reach of technology on the continent.
One was between the Digital Development Agency (ADD) and Indra, a Spanish technology solutions company. Under this collaboration, ADD and Indra look to develop innovative solutions tailored to Morocco's specific needs while helping to improve the country's digital competitiveness. Other obligations are strengthening digital skills and promoting a technological innovation culture.
Then there was a collaborative agreement between the Arab ICT Organisation and SMART Africa. Under this agreement, the two parties will collaborate on capacity building in modern technologies through a jointly implemented project as well as exploring the implementation of other projects of mutual interest.
The three-day event was wrapped up on May 31st with several achievements and lessons as we await the GITEX 2025.
