Africa-Press – Mauritius. A few months back, investors unveiled plans of setting up a global multimedia hub in the Indian Ocean Island of Mauritius. Touted as “Africa’s first integrated, international hub for the media and creative industries,” the envisaged MediaCity Mauritius will be based within the Beau Plan smart city.
It remains to be seen if Mauritius can sidestep the general inertia and endless delays that have plagued other smart cities on the continent. From Nigeria to Kenya to Senegal, there is no shortage of projects with shiny, impressive prospecti, grand utopian visions, but oftentimes little to show in terms of feasibility, practicality, and work on the ground.
All this, as Mauritius’ former appeal as an attractive investment destination where business could easily be conducted, is recently getting overshadowed by reports of rising authoritarianism, human rights abuses, and online surveillance scandals.
MediaCity Mauritius is positioning itself as an oasis of creation and innovation The MediaCity project was conceived as a hub of creativity, innovation, and learning on the continent with both the infrastructure and technology to support this.
One component of MediaCity Mauritius—African Media Campus (MediaCity School)—is scheduled for kick-off by September 2022, while the rest of the project should be rolled out by 2024.
MediaCity will be a “gateway for Africa to fulfill its long-awaited creative and commercial potential, attracting world-class media and creative companies,” according to a press release.
The hub is designed to be a home for international production companies, creative agencies, video game companies, broadcasters, and global media companies.
While listening to the budget speech, I did not feel that the government has understood that Mauritius can no longer afford non-priority infrastructure projects.
Mauritius is looking to capitalize on the prospects of rising Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) services in Africa, fostered by the increase of daily online content during Covid-19 lockdowns.
The expectation is that these services will rise to a total of 12.96 million subscriptions by 2025, with Netflix subscriptions accounting for almost half of this.
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