Africa-Press – Mauritius. Government has placed innovation and digitalisation at the centre of its socio-economic strategy in a bid to create a smart and connected island, enhance productivity, improve the quality of life of citizens and shape a prosperous future for the new generation, stated the Minister of Technology, Communication and Innovation, Mr Darsanand Balgobin.
He was speaking at the official inauguration of the new location for the company ELCA, founded in Mauritius in 2018 and offering a spectrum of experience, skills and technical innovations to support digitalisation, on Thursday 04 August 2022 at Vivéa Business Park in St Pierre.
Minister Balgobin underlined that ICT remains a resilient economic sector with growth rates of 5% in 2020 and 6.5% in 2021 despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The sector has around 30 000 employees and continues to provide for new employment opportunities for the youth, he said. In terms of connectivity, he pointed out that most households are connected to Fibre to the Home since 2017 adding that the island is fully covered by 3G and 4G services.
“In our endeavour to make the digital eco-system more resilient and secure for internet users”, he said, “a new law on Cybersecurity and Cybercrime has been introduced”.
Mauritius is currently ranked first in Africa and 17th in the world on the International Telecommunication Union Global Cyber Security Index 2020, he indicated.
He dwelt on several projects with the aim to digitalise government services including MoKloud, an online platform, giving access to the electronic format of birth and marriage certificate, digital vaccination passes.
The Ministry, he said, is currently working on the creation of a new feature, Chatbot, an intelligent virtual assistant. The Chatbot aims to revolutionise the citizen experience by answering queries and will interact with citizens in Kreol Morisien, English and French on Government portals and websites.
Minister Balgobin also spoke of the Mauritius Emerging Technologies Council (METC) which has as objective to review business environment and propose recommendations to promote new and emerging technologies in the economy.
The METC, he added, will organise a regional workshop on artificial intelligence this year to encourage the adoption of emerging technologies in the country.
As regards ELCA, he stated that the company contributes to the growth of the ICT sector and employs around 170 persons, and will attain the target of hiring 300 Mauritians by 2025.
As for the Chief Executive Officer of ELCA, Mr Cédric Moret, he pointed out that ELCA employs some 1700 people in Switzerland, the United States, Vietnam including Mauritius.
He lauded the hard work and determination of ELCA’s local staff adding that they have been very productive in the realisation of large-scale projects in the field of transport, health, finance, and public administration. He expressed gratitude to the Government for extending its continuous support and assistance for the expansion of the services of ELCA in Mauritius.
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