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IT Geographic
Overview:
Situated in Northwest Africa, only a few miles from Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar, Morocco is a natural bridge between the Western and the Islamic worlds and the African and the European continents. It becomes the main entry for multinational companies to build relationship either with Africa or Europe. The government of Morocco made a lot of efforts to build Morocco as an information technology canter. Fiber optics was built to connect to the US, Italy and France. Itissalat Al Maghrib(IAM, dominated ISP provider) built up a national wide network service as well as many local ISP providers. Satellite network connection is going to be the major tool of Internet in the place where the plastic fiber networks are not popular. IS Promotion Activities: The APEBI (Association for Professionals of Information Technologies) has launched an awareness campaign for the public concerning computer tools and the Internet using an "ITC caravan". The campaign will take place from the 22nd of November through the 22nd of December 1999, ending in Casablanca on the 23rd of December – the opening day of the PC Forum at the OFEC. France Telecom Interactive, a subsidiary of the French operator France Telecom, has launched its Wannadoo Morocco portal site in cooperation with two Moroccan companies: Maroc connect and Netcom. An American multinational is setting up a subsidiary to develop the Moroccan Internet. Orientation.com is specialized in the creation of regional portal sites. A link dedicated to Morocco in French was integrated into the site www.orientation.com (20 countries covered, 1 million visitors each day). However, local providers believe that a portal site on Morocco created by a foreign company is a threat in that it generates a political/cultural risk. Morocco had its information technologies park in Casablanca at the end of the second semester 2000. The objective is to create a functional space designed to welcome operators from the IT sector and to create a miniature Moroccan "Silicon Valley". This project is in partnership with the SEPTI, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, the APEBI and the Competitive Morocco Association. It has been inspired by similar projects such as the Quebec Technology Park and the Sophia Antipolis Zone. The cost of the project is estimated at 210 million dirhams (21 million dollars) and will be partially financed by development assistance organizations such as the World Bank. An international meeting was organized based on an initiative by the International Center of Cooperation for the Year 2000 and the SEPTI. It was held from the 1st to the 3rd of November at Rabat and dealt with emergency plans for services in North Africa and the Middle East. The goal of this seminar was to establish a regional cooperation network in order to prepare to passage into the year 2000 in critical sectors such as petrochemistry and civil aviation IBM Morocco has launched its solution for human resource management. This product allows different functions to be handled together (development, position management, recruitment) at an international level. This solution is, therefore, dedicated to multinationals that want to develop a proactive form of management for their human resources. |
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