The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat has delivered a speech at the opening of Qodwa-Tech Initiative’s annual event, The Future of Women’s Empowerment in the Digital Transformation Era 2025. Held under the theme “Partnerships that Amplify Impact,” this year’s event marked the sixth anniversary of the launch of Qodwa-Tech, which aims to enhance Egyptian women’s digital skills by harnessing the latest ICTs tailored to their practical and societal needs.
The event also coincided with the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD), celebrated this year under the theme “Gender equality in digital transformation.”
In his remarks, the ICT Minister emphasized that the Digital Egypt strategy, launched by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) over seven years ago, aims to build an integrated digital society that enables all citizens to use technology and benefit from its potential across all aspects of life. He added that Qodwa-Tech, launched by MCIT six years ago, aligns with the implementation of this strategy. The initiative targets the empowerment of Egyptian women nationwide by leveraging IT in developing their career paths and achieving their ambitions.
Talaat highlighted that women are the mainstay of Egyptian families and society. From this perspective, MCIT is committed to making its training programs accessible to all women while also introducing women-centric initiatives, like Qodwa-Tech.
He underscored that, over the past six years, the initiative has successfully trained more than 30,000 women from different governorates and equipped 55 female knowledge ambassadors, who have in turn imparted digital skills to over 16,000 women within their communities. In addition, Qodwa-Tech has played a pivotal role in raising public awareness of emerging technologies, most notably Artificial Intelligence (AI), by enhancing understanding of its capabilities, applications, and associated risks.
The ICT Minister underlined MCIT’s ongoing efforts to expand the initiative’s reach. He mentioned that, during his visits to various governorates, he regularly meets inspiring women who have benefited from Qodwa-Tech and have applied their newly acquired digital skills in marketing their handcrafted products online.
Concluding the opening session, Talaat honored several experts and representatives from Qodwa-Tech’s local and international partner agencies, acknowledging their contributions to digitally upskilling the initiative’s beneficiaries over the past year. He also recognized a number of successful role models who acquired digital skills through the initiative’s training tracks, along with honoring impact-makers, including knowledge ambassadors and partners, in appreciation of their continued efforts to sustain knowledge-sharing and foster digital inclusion among beneficiaries.
It is worth noting that, over the past six years, Qodwa-Tech has successfully empowered approximately 32,000 women across Egypt through comprehensive digital capacity-building programs. The initiative has also provided continuous guidance and support services to measure impact and address challenges using tech solutions. Moreover, it has contributed to raising public awareness of digital financial technologies (FinTech), financial inclusion, and sustainable development topics such as e-health and online safety, delivered through more than 100 awareness events.
Qodwa-Tech has established a sustainable community-based model centered on peer-to-peer knowledge transfer, with female knowledge ambassadors actively empowering their peers to use technology and share expertise in areas such as handicrafts and project management, thus boosting women’s entrepreneurship opportunities and reinforcing community-led digital empowerment.
In his speech during the event, Deputy Resident Representative at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Egypt Ghimar Deeb pointed to UNDP’s dedication to advancing the social and economic empowerment of women and youth nationwide. He referred to the ongoing and close collaboration with MCIT, alongside the Programme’s efforts to create more job opportunities for all segments of society, boost investment, promote gender equality, and support national initiatives to achieve sustainable development plans, in alignment with international development objectives.
For her part, Advisor to the ICT Minister for Digital Community Development Hoda Dahroug presented an overview of the key achievements of Qodwa-Tech. She reviewed its alignment with the genuine needs of Egyptian women and its role in empowering local female craftswomen and service providers. The presentation also highlighted efforts to build a network of role models capable of leading digital transformation within their communities.
Dahroug also showcased the initiative’s innovative digital solutions, especially in AI, and the impact of effective partnerships that have opened up tangible opportunities for integrating women into the local, regional, and international digital economy while incorporating an environmental dimension across all implementation phases.
She also outlined the initiative’s future vision, focusing on a comprehensive community engagement strategy, which so far involves more than 25 national, regional, and international partners. This strategy, she added, has fostered successful integration models between the public and private sectors and civil society, ensuring the sustainability of women’s digital and economic empowerment while highlighting success stories and social changes resulting from this partnership.
Director of the Supporting e-Government and Innovation in the Public Administration (InnoPA) project at the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) Adham Kassab commended the collaboration between GIZ and the initiative in organizing the first training camp. The camp brought together Qodwa-Tech’s outstanding beneficiaries, who exchanged experiences and insights with representatives from startups and institutions specializing in entrepreneurship, business development, and project expansion. She also noted that the camp’s participants learned about the latest technological solutions, including digital marketing, e-commerce, and AI technologies.
The event shed light on MCIT’s efforts in nurturing human development and fostering digital innovation and creativity among individuals. It also emphasized the Ministry’s unwavering focus, through its strategic partnership with UNDP, on advancing the digital empowerment of Egyptian women.
Additionally, the contributions of influential success partners, including government entities, civil society organizations, and international institutions, in supporting the initiative’s activities were also spotlighted, thus reinforcing the economic and social empowerment of women.
The event agenda included a session on strengthening community partnerships for sustainable impact, moderated by the recipient of the Qodwa-Tech role model and impact-maker certificate, Walaa Wagdy. The session featured the participation of partners and experts, including Chairman of Egyptian Handicrafts Export Council (EHEC) Hisham El Essawy, Director of Sustainability Centers at Sonaa El Kheir Foundation Radwa Hawary, Productivity Consultant and TEDx speaker Mostafa Gabr, and CEO and Co-founder of Wuilt Ahmed Rostom.
Participants at the session discussed the main challenges facing Qodwa-Tech’s beneficiaries and explored the digital support opportunities that their respective organizations could offer. The session also emphasized that community partnerships serve as a cornerstone for ensuring the sustainability of the initiative’s developmental impact.
At the conclusion of the session, Director of the Central Department of Digital Community Development at MCIT Hala Elsadek shared several key recommendations. Foremost among them was the importance of coordinated collective action with Qodwa-Tech to develop the value chain of a selected traditional craft. She also stressed the need to intensify efforts in digital documentation, protect intellectual property, and promote exclusive artistic development of the chosen craft using technological tools that preserve Egyptian identity and reflect local culture’s uniqueness.
Elsadek underscored that these recommendations included empowering women to lead this initiative by providing training and engaging them in creating professional digital content, such as photography, storytelling, and design, that showcases their talents and shares their stories.
The event also featured the announcement of Qodwa-Tech’s future vision, in response to the rapid technological advancements. This vision includes expanding training on AI tools and advancing digital content creation using cutting-edge technologies while also targeting new segments such as women with disabilities and graduates of technical education. It also entails continuing to organize training camps and broadening partnerships, especially with the private sector and national initiatives.
Moreover, a short documentary was also presented, highlighting the most prominent aspects of fruitful collaboration with institutional partners. It also showcased success stories achieved through these partnerships as well as the social, economic, and knowledge impact on beneficiaries and their local communities.
