Cabo Verde’s ‘tech islands’ vision backed with $50m

Cabo Verde officially unveiled its ‘TechPark CV’ this week as the island nation seeks to become a hub for digital services. The project, which is supported by a €45.59m ($50m) investment from the African Development Bank, aims to create up to 1,500 jobs on the island of Santiago and at a smaller campus on São Vicente.

In interview with African Business, Pedro Lopes, Cabo Verde’s secretary of state for the digital economy, described TechPark CV as the “cornerstone” of the country’s digital transformation strategy. The park includes a data centre in Santiago, along with training and conference facilities and an ‘incubation centre’ designed to support start-up businesses.

“Its role is to foster innovation, attract investment and support local start-ups and create high value jobs, especially for our youth,” says Lopes. He adds that the government is looking to reduce its dependence on tourism and “position Cabo Verde as a competitive player in the digital economy.”

Cabo Verde is not a necessarily an obvious location for a regional tech hub. The country comprises 10 islands lying around 600km off the West African mainland, and boasts a population of little more than 500,000.

But Lopes insists the country’s island location and small size can work to its advantage.

“We believe that we can be a hub in the Atlantic, and we believe that being small doesn’t mean not being relevant, because being small in the world of technology also means being fast in our decisions, and we believe we can be flexible and faster than the others.”

He points out that Cabo Verde is just an hour’s flight from Senegal, three hours from Portugal and three and a half hours from Brazil. It also benefits from good digital connections, partly because several subsea fibreoptic cables have landing points in the country.

International tech firms appear to agree that the archipelago has potential: executives from Microsoft and Intel were among those present at this week’s inauguration ceremony.

Attracting tech talent

Lopes tells us that companies based in the park will be well-positioned to serve clients in Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa, along with Brazil, Europe and the ECOWAS region. The park has also been designated as a ‘Special Economic Zone for Technologies’, allowing companies to benefit from fiscal incentives, including a 2.5% discount on corporation tax, plus VAT and import tax exemptions.

The secretary says companies will benefit from a “pretty flexible” approach to immigration. Nationals from a large range of countries can stay in Cabo Verde without needing a visa for the first three months.

In fact, Lopes suggests that Cabo Verde’s digitisation push could help the country persuade some of its large diaspora to return to their roots. Around twice as many Cabo Verdeans live abroad than in Cabo Verde itself, according to the International Organization for Migration.

“When you develop infrastructure of quality, like we are doing, you’re going to start attracting the diaspora. It’s not just international investors. We are sending a message to Cabo Verdeans that are living abroad: bright minds, it’s time to return.”

He argues that members of the diaspora – as well as other foreign nationals – could enjoy a good quality of life and a far lower cost of living in Cabo Verde while working remotely for international tech firms.

“If I close my eyes, and if I travel to the future, in 10, 15 years, I see an American, a European an African and maybe a South American, an Asian drinking coconuts by the sea, making business and then working to develop solutions for solving the problems of the world.”