In Senegal, public authorities join the growing number of investors who want to promote entrepreneurship and innovation through digital technology. The first edition of the Senegal digital forum, held on March 15, 2018 in Dakar at CCIAD, was an opportunity for digital stakeholders to reflect on the issues that the sector is facing and take steps to promote it. Many public and private authorities, including Macky Sall (president), attended this forum. Under the theme: “youth and the digital sector”, important resolutions were taken to support digital innovation, including financial support from the Senegalese authorities for young digital entrepreneurs, placed at the heart of expectations.
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1 billion CFA out of the 30 billion fund for Senegal’s new fast start entrepreneurship managed by the General Delegation for Women and Youth Entrepreneurship (DER/FJ), will be devoted to financing projects in the ICT sector. A relevant billion fund for ICT projects , according to the Senegalese president, to “mobilize all the proper tools to promote talents amongst our young population who has all the assets to exploit new technologies such as cloud computing, big data, the internet of things and artificial intelligence “. Through this initiative, Senegal wants to boost socio-economic development by fully leveraging ICT. In addition, the creation of a grand prize from the Head of State for digital innovation has been announced, to support innovation. The winner will be granted 20 million FCfa.