Towards a digital Seychelles   By Patsy Canaya   |26 August 2022

Delegates and guests in a souvenir photograph after the official opening ceremony

A new e-ID platform will be launched in Seychelles later this year, allowing for Electronic Know Your Customer (e-KYC), authentication, ID 4 verification and ease of digital signing, announced a top government official yesterday.

The Minister for Finance, National Planning and Trade, Naadir Hassan, made the statement at the opening of a two-day workshop on digital economy at Eden Bleu organised by the  Department of Information Communications Technology (DICT) in collaboration with the Special Envoy of Seychelles for Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The workshop, was officially opened by Seychelles Vice-President, Ahmed Afif, in the presence of President Wavel Ramkalawan and other top government officials and ASEAN representatives.

Entitled ‘Digital Seychelles’, it is bringing together around 50 experts, both from the private and public sectors, who are involved in the digitalization projects of their respective sectors.

In his address Minister Hassan said Seychelles had made a lot of progress in the digital development and was moving in the right direction, because the main technological infrastructure were in place.

He said these infrastructures, have been the foundation to ensure that Seychelles has fared quite well in terms of e-readiness in benchmarking reports regionally, such as the International Telecommunication Union’s Measuring Information Society Report and the UN’s E-Government Survey . This had led the country to be top on the list in the African region.

However he added that the country has a lot to go to further develop its digital ambition.

“The economic potential in this sector is endless, thus, the reason why the government has identified the digital economy, as a cornerstone of its drive to diversify and transform the country’s economy,” said Minister Hassan.

It should be noted that since last year, there is a National Steering Committee which is tasked with developing the Digital Economy. According to Minister Hassan it is putting in place the appropriate policies and structures through a National Digital Economy Strategy that will serve as a roadmap for Seychelles to reach its full digital potential.

One of the projects under the strategy is the e-ID platform, which is presently being tested and will be launched later this year, according to Minister Hassan.

“This system will be open for third party systems, including from the private sector, to interface to it and we will encourage as many locally to do so,” said Mr Hassan.

The two-day meeting will include various presentations namely, Seychelles status regarding its digital agenda, the digitalization of the country’s financial landscape, modernizing education using technology-enabled systems, the private sector role in gearing the digital economy and building the country’s tourism digital footprint, among others.

According to the principal secretary for Information Communication Technology, Benjamin Choppy, Seychelles has decided to partner with ASEAN for the workshop as it is well advanced in the digital development and the country also has its Special Envoy for ASEAN, Nico Barito.

He said the experts will be providing details of the current digitalization projects and outline any potential gaps that need to be addressed.

Mr Choppy said there are many gaps but a major one is the availability of human resources.

“We can buy solutions but we need people to manage these solutions, to use and integrate them into the way the country operates. We need people with that level of digital skills. We also need specialised people in cyber security. So we need to come up with a proper strategy to train our people who can take over in these areas and run these systems,” he said.

During the opening ceremony the secretary general of ASEAN, H.E. Dato Lim Jock Hoi, also addressed the audience through a video link, to reinforce the importance of the partnership between Seychelles and ASEAN.

Seychelles and ASEAN boast a strong relationship. In December last year the organisation’s secretary general paid a courtesy call on President Wavel Ramkalawan at State House where they talked about strengthening cooperation in the blue economy and environment sectors.

Earlier this year it was Seychelles’ Minister for Foreign Affairs and Tourism, Sylvestre Radegonde, who also held discussions with him at the ASEAN headquarters in Jakarta.

The workshop ends today with a document outlining both parties’ position following the discussions.