Orange launched the first 'Orange Digital Centre' for Africa and the Middle East in Tunis to provide wide-ranging support for startups.
The Operator plans to set-up similar centres in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Jordan, Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone by the end of this year. From 2020 onwards, Morocco, Egypt and the rest of the countries in the Middle East and Africa region will have their own Orange Digital Centre, said the Operator.
From training young people in coding to more direct guidance, as well as startup acceleration and investment in early-stage companies, these new sites are intended for all kinds of different people. The Orange Digital Centre houses four strategic programmes under the same roof: the coding school, the FabLab Solidaire, Orange Fab and Orange Digital Ventures Africa.
The coding school is a freely accessible and totally free-of-charge technological centre that offers training and events for the community of young developers, geeks and people with ideas for projects. It is particularly aimed at students, young graduates and young entrepreneurs.
The FabLab Solidaire is a digital production workshop for creating and prototyping with digital equipment, such as 3D printers, milling machines and laser cutters. It brings together both young people who are unemployed and have no qualifications as well as students, young graduates and young entrepreneurs.
Orange Fab is a startup accelerator with an aim to build national and international business partnerships with the Orange Group and the international Orange Fab network. This programme helps improve managerial capabilities and provides support for the commercial development of promising startups, and it is mainly aimed at entrepreneurs.
Orange Digital Ventures Africa is a 50-million euro investment fund for financing innovative startups in Africa and the Middle East (fintech, e-health, energy, edutech and govtech), and it targets entrepreneurs.
Alioune Ndiaye, CEO, Orange Middle East and Africa
Functioning as a network, these sites favour sharing experiences and expertise in a way that will benefit not just entrepreneurs but also students, young people with or without degrees, and young people undertaking a career change.
Christine Albanel, Deputy Chair of the Orange Foundation
This new initiative is part and parcel of the ambition to make digital inclusion the key focus of our social commitment. The ‘FabLab Solidaire’, which is part of the Foundation’s inclusion programmes, is a gateway that will enable young people to develop new skills and firmly establish their career path.
