GEN President Jonathan Ortmans spoke last week at the inaugural African Startup Conference, organized by Dr. Yacine Oualid, Algeria’s Minister for Knowledge Economy and Startups. Ortmans delivered opening remarks alongside Aymen Benabderrahmane, Prime Minister of Algeria and Noureddine Tayebi, founder and CEO of Algeria’s most successful startup, Yassir.
The conference, held in Algiers, convened ministers with responsibility for entrepreneurship policy from 30 African countries to exchange good practices and agree on a roadmap towards pan-African cooperation in the field of startup development. The two-day event also convened entrepreneurs and ecosystem leaders from Algeria and the wider continent to identify actions surrounding policy, finance, technology trends, and incubation to help strengthen African entrepreneurship ecosystems.
In a declaration, the participating ministers agreed to:
- Further strengthen pan-African cooperation in the field of innovation and new technologies;
- Create an exchange mechanism for best practices on public policies designed to support startups;
- Outline the promotion of startups as a national economic priority within government development programs;
- Coordinate policies at the continental and international levels to promote Africa’s place in the global innovation and startup ecosystems;
- Encourage institutions in charge of entrepreneurship to build strategies and action plans to accelerate the continent’s economic development and technological growth;
- Facilitate African startup mobility through the designation of one incubator in each country as a ‘soft landing’ point;
- Engage in deeper reflection aimed at creating an African Startup Fund;
- Promote the development of a roadmap to implement, execute, and monitor the strategic goals of the conference.
The inaugural African Startup Conference built upon extensive entrepreneurial development activities that have been driven by Minister Oualid over the last two years. A former technology entrepreneur, 29-year old Oualid was appointed by the President of Algeria to the new Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Startups and SMEs in 2020. Since then, the government has:
- Implemented a Startup Act that provides a legal definition for startups, innovative projects, and incubators, and a Finance Law that removed foreign ownership limitations for the majority of industries
- Launched the Algeria Startup Fund, which dispersed $3.3 million to 390 startups by April 2022 and announced a $411 million fund in August 2022.
- Launched the Algeria Venture accelerator and six university incubators.
- Hosted three annual ‘Algeria Disrupt’ tech entrepreneurship conferences.
The outputs from the African Startup Conference Ministerial will be crucial input from emerging African nations to GEN's global Ministerial scheduled for May 2023 in Melbourne.
GEN has coordinated Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) activities in Algeria since 2011, with over 60,000 events hosted across all 58 provinces over the years. Algeria has won the GEN Champion Catalyzer Award for Activities six years in a row for its GEW campaigns. In 2016, GEN Algeria was launched. Led by Fatiha Rachedi, GEN Algeria has supported 576,000 people through its programs including 6,700 university students. It has trained 150 trainers and has secured over 500 media appearances. Notable programs include the Entrepreneurship Leadership Innovation Program (ELIP), the Women Entrepreneurship Program, Enfantpreneur (a children’s program), the Media Entrepreneurship Program, Entrepreneurship Summer School, and the Youth Entrepreneurship Caravan.
"There is so much to be impressed with here in Africa ranging from nearly a dozen startup acts artfully constructed on lessons learned from Europe and the Americas, to the mere recognition for new firm formation by the creation of a Startup Ministry," said Jonathan Ortmans. "I am very pleased I accepted this invitation to visit and am astounded by the potential for Algeria as a next generation startup nation."