Even though the totality of
the Senegalese territory is covered by a high-tech phone network (built by Sonatel), Senegaleses at the
city, regional, and national levels are not affected equally by information
technologies.Indeed, most of the IT
activities are concentrated around Dakar, which only accounts for 25% of the
population.However, 45% of the total
population lives in urban areas, such as Thies, and Saint-Louis among other cities.
Technopolis
Inaugurated in 1996, the
“Senegalese CyberPark” is a 194.5 economic zone,
whose primary purpose was to host companies specialized in ICT and in
R&D.This is the first IT/R&D
Park of the kind in Africa.It was
designed to include R&D centers, Training and Educational centers.Foreign companies would benefit from tax and
fiscal breaks as well as find an already prepared infrastructure, thus reducing
considerably the costs of moving operations overseas.It encompasses four technology complexes:
Agriculture/Food
Management/Coordination
Information and Telecommunication Technology
Environment/Energy/Medecianl
plants
Within the technopolis, the Sonatel intends
to build a”telepolis” to provide information and
training to operators, in order to assist local enterprises in the
implementation and knowledge of the latest telecommunications technologies.
In 2003, investors as well
as Nationals have not taken full advantage of the site yet, thus resulting in a
disappointment vis-à-vis the performance and the results that were expected.It is important to note that the “SenegaleseSilliconValley” was geared more towards the service industry rather than the
manufacturing industry.
Cyber-Village
The Senegalese President,
Mr. Abdoulaye Wade, mentioned in May 2003 the
potential conception of a cyber-village taking as example the 85,000
inhabitants’ Indian cyber-village (Bangalore).It would
be build within the current Technopolis.Because of the magnitude of this project, the
Senegalese government decided to let the project be sponsored by a consortium
of private venture capitalists, and focus on more pressing national
issues.The construction of the
cyber-village would cost $40 million (CFA 22 billion).
