The 'Plug🔌& Pray🙏' ICT Parks

Welcome to 56th edition of ፍራንክ Digest!

Your weekly brief on all things Finance and Investing. Quick, enjoyable reads for busy professionals in 5 minutes or less.

Here’s what’s coming your way:

• 🎯 Startups Wanted: Ethiopia’s Tech Parks are Missing the Mark

• 💔 Dear Tax Office: It’s Not Us, It’s You

• 🗝️ The Key Takeaways

Thanks for reading!

All Park, No Spark: Trouble With Ethiopia’s ICT Parks

Innovation

Once upon a time, Ethiopia had a dream. Rows of sleek buildings buzzing with innovation, startups pitching ideas, and software engineers solving continental challenges between macchiato breaks. That was the vision behind the Ethio ICT Park, launched in 2012 with a $45 million assist from China’s ZTE.

Fast forward to 2025 and the mood is… less Silicon Valley, more Empty Alley.

Here’s why.

The Vision: Build It and They Will Code

• The Ethio ICT Park sits on 200 hectares a few miles drive behind Bole International Airport, meant to be the engine room of Ethiopia’s digital transformation.

• It promised to attract multinational tech companies and homegrown startups alike, all running on high-speed internet, secure facilities, and boundless potential.

• Ethiopia even had Sheba Valley branding ambitions — a nod to Kenya’s Silicon Savannah.

And to be fair, some bits did get built. ZTE set up shop. There are fences. There are fiber cables. But after a decade, the park remains eerily quiet. You’re more likely to find cows grazing nearby than techies furiously typing code.

The Reality: A $45M “Coming Soon” Sign

Here’s what we’ve got on the ground:

• A few office blocks

• Some government tenants

• A few data center projects

• Not much else

By 2023, the park was reportedly hosting fewer than 300 employees — a rounding error compared to Kenya’s Konza Technopolis ambitions.

Startups? Not so many. Internet access is patchy, power is flaky, and permits are, well… you know how we feel about those bureaucratic gymnastics.

And let’s talk cost. According to one Addis Fortune piece, tech entrepreneurs were stunned by the lease and setup fees.

So What’s Holding It Back?

Startups in Ethiopia face a plethora of challenges that a shiny office can’t fix: