Rinchi
TechInAfrica – A telecommunications company, Orange, has announced the launch of “Orange Digital Centre” in Tunis, Tunisia. The Digital Centre is built around a new concept and part of Orange’s dedication to innovation.
The Digital Centre provides a wide range of support for African startups, including coding training for youths, acceleration for startups, as well as investment for early-stage startups. It’s purposed for all different types of people in the industry.
Orange is dedicated to supporting digital transformation and local innovation in all the countries across its footprint.
“I am very proud to launch the first Orange Digital Centre in Tunis. By the end of this year, we will set-up similar centers 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. Dedicated to our countries’ digital development, these new spaces aim to consolidate Orange’s standing as a key player in the digital transformation of the countries where we operate.
Functioning as a network, these sites favor 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,” said Alioune Ndiaye, CEO of Orange Middle East and Africa.
The Deputy Chair of the Orange Foundation, Christine Albanel, said: “The mission of the Orange Foundation in the countries where the Group operates is to use digital technology to provide everyone with a chance. This new initiative is part and parcel of the ambition to make digital inclusion the key focus of our social commitment. The FabLab Solidaire, which is part of the Foundation’s inclusion programmes, is a gateway that will enable young people to develop new skills and firmly establish their career path.”
The Digital Centre four programs including the coding school, the FabLab Solidaire, Orange Fab, and Orange Digital Ventures Africa. Coding school is aimed for students, young graduates, and young entrepreneurs, enabling them to access free training and event for the community of young developers, tech enthusiasts, and people with project ideas.
The FabLab Solidaire provides a digital production workshop in digital equipment like 3D printers, milling machines, and laser cutters. It’s aimed for unemployed youths with no qualifications, students, young graduates, and young entrepreneurs.
Orange Fab is a startup accelerator aiming at building a national and international business partnership with the Orange Group as well as the global Orange Fab network for entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, Orange Digital Ventures Africa is a venture capitalist that provides a 50 million euro investment fund to finance African and the Middle Eastern innovative startups—fintech, e-health, energy, edutech, and govtech.
“Orange Tunisia’s commitment to young people, ever since its launch, is a real success story, and four figures illustrate this perfectly. 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 % of them have been employed in Tunisia or abroad,” said Thierry Millet, CEO of Orange Tunisia.
Source: africabusinesscommunities.com
