Techne Summit: Egypt’s Innovation Scene Soars with New EgyptInnovate AI-Powered Platform

Mohammed Kamal

Last updated 5-10-2025

5 min

The Techne Summit 2025 in Alexandria showcases innovation in Egypt's startup ecosystem.

Dr Amr Talaat announced an upgraded *EgyptInnovate* platform to connect startups with investors.

New AI chatbot offers personalised advice to early-stage founders on tech, business, and finance.

Investment in ICT startups increased sevenfold from 2020 to 2025, boosting Egypt's innovation scene.

The focus on digital talent with over 480,000 trained last year targets a half-million annually.

The buzz around Alexandria this week was electric as the Techne Summit 2025 got underway inside the grand halls of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. I’ve been to my fair share of startup gatherings, but there’s something rather special about this one. Maybe it’s the salty breeze off the Mediterranean or the sheer optimism that fills the air when you get hundreds of founders, investors and tech dreamers in one place.

Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Dr Amr Talaat, took centre stage with a headline announcement — a refreshed version of the *EgyptInnovate* platform is on its way. Built to help startups find their footing in the investment world, the upgrade will feature an interactive, data-rich map connecting young companies with both local and international investors. It’s clever stuff — open-source information, summaries of ecosystem players, plus AI tools that will make it easier to compare startups and spot investment opportunities.

What really caught my attention was the new chatbot that’s been added. It’s powered by artificial intelligence, offering tailored advice on tech, business and finance — all the things early-stage founders often struggle to source. The platform already counts more than 70,000 users, and the ministry hopes to double that soon. That’s quite some scaling ambition.

Dr Talaat shared a few encouraging figures too: investment in ICT startups has grown sevenfold between 2020 and 2025 compared with the previous five-year period. “The numbers don’t lie,” as they say, and it’s a good sign that Egypt’s innovation scene is punching above its weight. He tied this momentum to the *Digital Egypt* strategy, which, he explained, rests on three pillars — one of them squarely focused on creativity and entrepreneurship. Under his watch, the number of *Creativa Digital Egypt Innovation Centres* has mushroomed from three in 2018 to 24 across 21 governorates. Not bad progress at all.

These centres, he said, have already supported around 790 startups, offering everything from technical training to lab access. In just the past 18 months, 69 of those have moved through incubation, turning prototypes into tangible products — the kind that catch investors’ eyes. Having seen some of these young founders talk through their tech ideas at past events, I reckon that sort of ground-level support from the ministry can make or break a business.

And then there’s the question of talent. The ministry seems intent on building it from the ground up — training numbers jumped from just 4,000 participants in 2018 to 480,000 last fiscal year. They’re targeting half a million trainees every year now. That’s bold, but if they pull it off, Egypt could see a steady pipeline of skilled talent funnelled into its digital sector — something we at Arageek are always rooting for across the region.

Financing came up as well, of course. The partnerships with big global accelerators like Plug and Play and 500 Global have already brought interesting opportunities, expanding beyond Cairo to areas such as Aswan and — in the next phase — the Nile Delta, the Canal cities and Alexandria itself. It’s good to see that investment isn’t only flowing to the capital. The governor of Alexandria, Major General Ahmed Khaled Saeed, sounded genuinely keen for young innovators to help tackle local urban problems with smart-tech ideas. It’s a call that felt spot on — practical, inclusive, and forward-looking.

On the flip side, there’s still plenty of work ahead. Dr Talaat mentioned the *Start IT* and *Creativa Incubation* programmes — the former offering up to EGP 1 million in support, including AWS cloud credits, and the latter giving startups roughly EGP 400,000 over nine months. These are solid incentives, but I can’t help thinking that scaling will still be a bit of a faff unless access to early capital is made even smoother.

The Swedish ambassador, Dag Juhlin-Dannfelt, also stepped up to the mic, praising the partnership between Egypt and Sweden in innovation and AI. He shared that Sweden’s national AI strategy is already being used to improve citizens’ lives, and he encouraged more collaboration with Egyptian startups. Ahmed El Wakil, who heads ASCAME and the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce, echoed that sentiment, calling startups and SMEs the “main engines” of economic growth — especially in the digital age. Hard to argue with that.

By the time the opening ceremony wrapped up, Dr Talaat, Governor Saeed, and Ambassador Dannfelt were happily touring the startup exhibition, chatting with entrepreneurs and posing for the ritual photos. You could sense the pride — the kind of quiet satisfaction that maybe, just maybe, Egypt’s innovation ecosystem is finding its rhythm.

As the Techne Summit continues, topics will range from fintech and martech to food tech, gaming, e-commerce, and beyond — seventy countries in the mix. For those of us passionate about entrepreneurship here in MENA, it feels like the region’s pulse is quickening. And while there’s still ground to cover, I’m definately convinced Egypt’s startup scene is moving in the right direction.

🚀 Got exciting news to share?

If you're a startup founder, VC, or PR agency with big updates—funding rounds, product launches 📢, or company milestones 🎉 — AraGeek English wants to hear from you!