The campaign by Egypt's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MICT) to promote investment by US technology companies in the North African country's ICT sector is currently underway in Silicon Valley.

The Egyptian delegation is expected to also travel to New York as part of ongoing efforts to establish a centre of excellence at one of the country's technology parks, an initiative that has to date secured the participation of Oracle.

Yasser ElKady, Minister of Communications and Information Technology met with senior leaders from Oracle to canvass their support in a meeting on the second day of the US mission, according to a statement issued by the Ministry.

"During the meeting, Oracle expressed its willingness to participate in this great national project in Egypt. Oracle General Manager and Senior Vice President Gary Miller pointed out that Oracle established two training centres in Borg El Arab and New Assiut Technology Parks," read the statement.

Minister ElKady also met with Pastora Valero, Cisco Government Affairs Senior Director who presented the company's products for connected digital platforms, smart city technological solutions and a developers network program.

"The Minister talked about the growth of the ICT sector, reaching a positive 11.2%, allowing the sector to rank first in growth rates among the other state sectors during the first quarter of the current fiscal year. This growth is due to a number of mega projects on top of which is the technology parks that aim to promote technology across Egypt," the Ministry added, along with confirmation that discussion also covered plans to manufacture Egypt's first local mobile phone in the second half of the year.

ElKady also met with Powell Lodiasena, Chairman of AT Kearney and Sam Yen, Managing Director at SAP.

Meetings have been scheduled with senior executives from General Electric, Dell, HP, Synopsys, Mentor Graphics, Honeywell and Infor, as well as Cisco.

Cisco IoT Creathon

The meetings with Cisco representatives looked into IoT integrated platforms through which control and operations centres can benefit to track and manage the infrastructure, according to the Ministry.

ITWeb Africa has learned that Cisco Academy in Egypt is already planning an IoT Creathon to take place next week Wednesday.

Students at Cairo University will compete to develop solutions to tackle IoT-related problems, according to organisers of the event.