The Algiers Smart City Project is more than just another smart city project: It is a platform for talent mobilization. Over the past week, I had the pleasure to participate in the Smart Cities Summit in Algiers and as mentor and judge in the Leapfrog Hackathon and Startup Challenge. These events were designed to focus attention on Algiers burgeoning startup scene and enhance interaction with global actors to address the IDC syndrome.
The IDC Syndrome
The IDC syndrome refers to the isolation, dependency and lack of confidence that inhibits emerging markets from developing a viable startup ecosystem. Emerging economies struggle to build ecosystems around technology development. Even as they conduct significant technology development and investment in startups, corporations and R&D labs, emerging economies have little to show for. We at Xona Partners believe there are three reasons for this:
- Isolation: Local technology ecosystems work independently in cocooned environments that minimizes interaction with global ecosystems.
- Dependency: While relatively advanced technology is in use within various projects in the emerging world, there is dependency on the suppliers of this technology. Technology transfer and partnership models are virtually non-existent.
- Confidence: Local technology corporations and startups in particular have challenges in scaling. They lack the confidence in their ability to build advanced commercial solutions.
To help emerging economies improve their competitive footing in developing technology, it is essential to reduce isolation and dependency and increase confidence. There is no single path to achieve these objectives. For Algiers, talent mobilization is a potential solution. The Algiers Smart City Project addresses the IDC syndrome by encouraging interaction of the local startup ecosystem with diaspora talent interested in helping the home country in developing its technology cluster. Global connectedness is at the heart of this objectives. The Algiers Smart City event pulled in experts from over 40 countries. With over 4,000 attendees, it is the largest event of its kind in Africa and one of the largest in the world.
The Leapfrog Hackathon (Day 1)
Leapfrog technologies like blockchains, AI, IoT and others are fields that emerging countries can focus on to stake a position in the global technology leadership. For an overview on the objectives of the hackathon see this link, and this link.
The Leapfrog Hack pulled over 30 teams and over 250 university students to solve problems related to smart cities using leapfrog technologies. I had the honour and pleasure of being a mentor for a highly talented and enthusiastic teams of students who worked around the clock for 3 days to develop amazing solutions to some very real problems.
A panel of judges consisting of entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley and other technology hubs in addition to regional corporations and VCs selected 5 from a short list of 12 teams to win awards in the hackathon.
In addition to the hackathon, the startup competition awarded prizes to 3 winners from a shortlist of 8 companies. The companies are developing a range of solutions related to IoT, medical imaging, virtual reality, and education demonstrate the value and variety startups bring to local economies.
The Algiers Smart City Summit (Day 2 & 3)
The Smart City Summit brought together thought leaders, entrepreneurs, corporate executives, government leaders and policy makers from over 40 countries. The Prime Minister of Algeria and Mayor of Algiers opened the conference. Riad Hartani of Xona Partners who leads the technology advisory for the Algiers Smart City Project followed with an overview of the project:
The summit featured keynote presentations and panel discussions on an assortment of topics related to smart city projects:
- Finance and investment
- Technology
- Sustainability
- Security
- Mobility
- Governance
My presentation focused on the importance of startups in driving innovation and the economy.
Live Experimental Lab
The Algiers Smart City Project will provide an open lab for companies to deploy their smart city solutions in an urban environment. We are now in process of setting the foundation for this live experimental lab. An area in the city of Algiers has been selected to host the lab. Soon, we will have many enablers in place, such as licenses for experimental frequencies among other prerequisite.
More information about the Experimental Lab at this link.
Additional coverage:
Hackathon: https://www.facebook.com/djslalger/videos/
Short report: https://centraledigitale.com/retour-smart-city-algiers-2018/
Conference and competition finale: https://www.facebook.com/SmartAlgiers/videos/185502515453565/?t=7589