On the eve of Gitex Africa 2025
Tomorrow marks the third edition of Gitex Africa. Once again, Marrakech is preparing to welcome some of the brightest minds in global tech. The aisles will be buzzing with data, demos, and declarations. And as always, the city — magnetic and magnificent — will play host. But this year, something has shifted. The host is ready to become a protagonist. Hospitality can become strategy. The horizon, industry.
Let’s be honest: during the first two editions, we were there — present, curious, even proud. But deep down, we still felt like guests in our own home. This time, our gaze is different. Our region no longer just receives; it wants to shape, to contribute, to lead.
I speak here with the energy of a new appointment as Vice President General of CGEM Marrakech-Safi. But more than a title, I speak as a son of this land in transformation. A land long rooted in three pillars: agriculture, tourism, and construction. Three solid pillars — now facing new pressures. The first suffers from the skies. The second, once governed by the seasons, now struggles to reassure investors. The third grapples with land pressure and urban imbalance. Each, in its own way, calls for a fourth breath.
And that breath exists. It’s already here — in fragments, in sparks, in spirit. It’s called the Creative and Cultural Industries (CCI) — and at their core beats digital technology, not as a tool but as a vital organ.
CCI does not replace our existing economy. It elevates agriculture by preserving its memory, reimagines tourism through immersive experience, magnifies our built heritage by transforming it into story and stage. It turns craft into design, tradition into exportable formats, local narratives into global assets. It is transversal, ubiquitous, capable of connecting margins to centers, the tangible to the intangible. It speaks the language of the economy — but through the rhythm of culture.
Yet building a new industry demands strong foundations. And ours, as noble as they are, are weakening. Agriculture is no longer as reliable as it once was. Even this year’s blessed rainfall cannot mask the urgency of economic diversification. Can we still build our future on what falls from the sky? Digital doesn’t wait for rain. It calls for infrastructure, for talent, for vision. And in return, it offers scale, flexibility, and sovereignty.
To illustrate this power, let us look to a sector often overlooked: cybersecurity. It is both building block and shield. No longer a luxury, it is now indispensable. The recent CNSS data leak — a breach that shook not only an institution but confidence in Morocco itself — made that painfully clear.
And yet Marrakech has not waited to respond. The first Moroccan engineering track in cybersecurity has opened at ENSA. At EBF, we were proud to help inspire, support, and promote this initiative — with modest means but wholehearted conviction. Alongside it, the CRISIS association has emerged — bold, civic, alert. These are not side stories; they are pillars of trust in a digital economy. But how many Marrakchis know they even exist?
And beyond the official programs, there are the coding clubs — hidden gems in schools, universities, and neighborhoods. Passion-driven communities, often operating with little recognition or funding, but filled with promise. What do they need? A little trust. A little funding. A little visibility.
What if, tomorrow, these clubs became the civic nurseries of national cybersecurity — or of other digital and creative pathways still untapped, still waiting to bloom?
And then, there’s the youth — 34% of the region’s population. A quiet majority, yet wide awake. 90% of the territory is rural. So what? That’s not an obstacle — that’s a lever. These young people don’t need permission; they need platforms. They need space, mentors, stories in which they can see themselves. What they haven’t yet learned, they can absorb. What they haven’t yet imagined, they can build. They carry fire. Let’s give them hearth.
And if we’re speaking of inclusion, let’s think globally. What if Marrakech became a home — not just a stopover — for digital nomads? Not a postcard city, but a place to stay longer, to belong, to collaborate. They come for the beauty, the light, the energy. But what if they stayed for the Bahja — the untranslatable joy that weaves through our city, a luminous disorder where ideas dance?
Nomads can pollinate. They can inspire, recruit, train, document, uplift. And when they leave, they leave something behind — a connection, a spark, a memory. But when they stay longer, we evolve too.
So yes — Marrakech can become an industry. Not a cold one. A warm one. One that values humanity, narrative, expression. An industry where we code like we compose, where we design like we cultivate, where we connect like we welcome.
It is not a utopia.
It is a strategy.
And it begins now.
Proudly and generously translated by AI
(Yet speaking about CCI…)
