Indian, Ethiopian tech investors team up

Ethiopian and Indian technology entrepreneurs showcased their innovative work at the Ministry of Innovation and Technology in a bid to commercialize their groundbreaking work.
There were 31 validated Indian and 62 Ethiopian technological and innovative projects in agriculture, food processing, green energy, waste management, education, information technology, and health were displayed during a week-long exhibition and side line conference which remained open from December 9-14, 2019.
“Partnership in validated innovation work is pertinent to foster our move to digitize our economy,” said Getahun Mekuria, Minister of Innovation and Technology. Adding that Ethiopia is undertaking major economic reforms which will enable Indian and other companies to participate in the move towards privatization.
The exhibition is part of the agreement between the two countries to deploy over 50 Indian innovation and technology entrepreneurs with Ethiopian counterparts over a period of five years in order to stimulate economic impact development in the country.
For this program, qualified and validated Indian innovations & technological work was selected through a unique and rigorous evaluation process to create sustainable joint ventures in Ethiopia to build an ecosystem wherein Indian innovations and technology enterprises drive B2B/B2G business ventures with Ethiopia, propelling growth in India and Ethiopia.
According to Getahun, Ethiopia is aspiring to follow the footsteps of India in science, innovation and technology and Ethiopia has a lot to learn from India’s entrepreneurship.
India is one of the big Asian digital economies in terms of science and technology mobilization as well as incubation for the creation of wealth and employment.
Indian Ambassador to Ethiopia, Anurag Srivastava said the expo and conference on science, innovation and technology create interaction and engagement between Indian and Ethiopian companies and stressed India’s commitment to further deepen its partnership with Ethiopia to support its development in innovation and technology.
From the showcase the Ministry of Innovation will select close to 100 innovative projects to team up with Indian technological innovators. On top of this the exhibition will capacitated Ethiopian innovators to add values in the local products and create more jobs in the field.
“That means that the best way to really create wealth in the world is through technology-based and knowledge-based industries,” Getahun adds.
The contribution of technolo0gy to GDP is insignificant though Ethiopia has an advantage as the large number of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) educated graduates who are beginning to enter the job market following the government’s investments in higher education. However the ministry’s plan to raise the Ethiopian tech sector to 2 percent of GDP or 2billion USD in the next two years – up from what he calls its “insignificant” contribution today.