Unlike French banks that have withdrawn from the African continent, Orange continues to develop on the other side of the Mediterranean. And in this context, the tricolor heavy goods vehicle in particular on Morocco. It is therefore logical to find the operator at the Gitex Africa in Marrakech.
On this occasion, Maddyness met Jérôme Hénique, CEO of Orange Africa and Middle East.
MADDYNESS – Is Africa one of the best innovation fields in the world Today to reinvent yourself in a very competitive industry?
It is true that it moves a lot on the continent! For us, it has always been a source of innovation for the group. We have been present for more than 20 years on the continent, first as an operator, to bring good connectivity, with 165 million mobile customers today. But we diversified fairly quickly towards mobile financial services. In 2008, Orange Money was launched in Côte d’Ivoire. Today we have 40 million monthly active accounts. According to the GSMA, there are about 160 million active accounts in Africa, about half of the world’s number of wallets.
It is clearly a land of innovation. And beyond new services that we provide ourselves, there are also many as we offer in partnership with startups. We were able to support these through our system which is called Orange Digital Center (ODC), which is present today in 16 of our 17 countries in Africa, but also 8 countries in Europe. It is an example of innovation that was launched on the continent by Asma Ennaifer (Director of CSR, Communication and the Orange Digital Center program in the Middle East and Africa, editor’s note) in 2012 in Tunisia, which irrigated all our geographies, both in Africa, in the Middle East, but also in Europe.
Orange Digital Center allows you to engage in digital training, but also to support startups. How does it work?
Indeed, it is a fairly unique concept because ODC brings together in one place all the bricks of the digital ecosystem, both the training, and we have formed more than 1.2 million people for free at the end of last year, which contributes to the employability of young people, which is also an important issue of the continent. And then it is a place where, beyond seeking a job after their training, young people can launch their projects through their startups. We have accompanied more than 300 to date and this in various ways: incubation, acceleration and prototyping. There is also mentoring, coaching on each of the dimensions of their projects to funding.
And for this decisive step, we notably have our own Orange Ventures fund, which has invested in around twenty of the incubated or accelerated startups in our ODCs on date. We also have partners to help us in this mission.
Precisely, you have concluded a partnership at the Gitex to raise your support for continent startups …
Indeed, we have just signed a partnership with Flat6labs (major player in the acceleration of startups in the MENA region, editor’s note). This will allow us to share the Flow deal and identify promising startups that need this type of support and contribute with us to tenders for international funding and finance these startups directly.
This partnership completes our fairly complete system which works according to a network logic insofar as our Digital Centers Orange exchange with each other. There are a lot of events, including a Demo day once a year in Egypt where startups from different countries are pitching. It also allows them to extend their business beyond their domestic market. We support them in this approach through commercial contracts that they can also have with us and which will allow them, beyond their country of departure, to extend to sub-Saharan Africa or North Africa.
At the gitex, you have some startups on our stand which are quite emblematic, like Toumai. It is a beautiful nugget that makes LLM in the local language. More and more startups are using artificial intelligence and we are delighted to accelerate them. In addition, this is beneficial for our own services, in particular for our super-App Max IT, which allows our customers to find both their telecoms services, but also financial services and e-commerce. For example, we will rely on Toumai to offer our local language services, using AI to improve our bots.
Recently, you have made a good exit with Instadeep …
Yes, but what we are looking for above all are first of all strategic synergies and business partnerships rather than a purely financial logic. We are not in a classic logic of funds insofar as we are in an approach where the contribution to the digital ecosystem and to our own business issues is very important.
For you, the Gitex Africa is a major event. What were your expectations for this 3rd edition?
Yes, it’s always a highlight. What must already be emphasized is that the gitex is growing. This is an opportunity to exhibit and visibility the startups that we support. There are about twenty that run every day on our stand. This will allow them to meet useful meetings for the development of their business, a little like Vivatech in France where certain young shoots from the continent are also brought each year. This visibility effort also allows them to meet investors and meet other startups in the same sector in other countries. The gitex is really the meeting of the great formal actors of the continent, in particular of Morocco but not that, and startups from all walks of life.
It is important for us to contribute to this event because Morocco is an important hub for Orange. There is the headquarters of the group for Africa and the Middle East, which was inaugurated in January 2020. In the country, we have all our support teams, about 160 employees, for our 17 countries in Africa and Jordan in the Middle East.
In your eyes, is Morocco the locomotive of Africa in tech?
There is a very important role in the kingdom as a hub for Africa. It is also a form of bridge between Europe and Africa for the development of innovations and the economic partnerships of the continent in general. We are also seeing more and more big startups emerging in Morocco. They seek to conquer different markets, especially in Africa, but also in Europe. And then investments in venture capital funds are gaining power, especially in Morocco.
For decades, many leaders and international experts say that Africa is the continent of tomorrow. But isn’t it time to say that it is the continent of the moment?
Yes, this is the continent of today and for a while. Obviously, there is this frenzy of tech and startups. There is an impressive capacity of the continent to transform very quickly and to make frog jumps to directly adopt the technologies of tomorrow. We have seen it on mobile financial services with important innovations. Initially, it was the equivalent of deposit accounts, then it evolved towards very advanced fintech and insurech services. This testifies to the capacity brought by its demographic dynamism but also economic to seek to innovate to design innovations useful for populations and businesses. This is what makes the bubbling of these startups on the continent.
Behind these tech projects, there is a logic to be directly useful to the main challenges of the continent, whether in terms of health, education, agriculture, financial and telecoms. Overall, the acceleration of digital transformation is based on three pillars. The first is connectivity. We did it with accelerated 4G coverage. Now it’s 5G time. Then, the electronic payment methods are there, especially with Orange Money. And when you have these two, there is also the subject of the digital identity which progresses very quickly. With these catalysts, an ecosystem can be created because all these startups will come and use them to create their own business and their own vertical in the key fields that are health, education, agriculture and telecoms. And this is our role through ODCs to try to accompany them as well as possible.
