Yacine El-Mahdi Oualid

Yacine Oualid became Algeria’s new Minister of Startups — a newly created ministry under the newly elected President Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s administration — on January 02, 2020. 

He studied at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Sidi Bel Abbès.

Prior to becoming Algeria’s Minister of Startups, in June 2016 Yacine Oualid created SSH, a company specializing in cloud solutions for businesses, which would later become the first private web host in Algeria. In September 2019, he and his partner founded Smart Ways3, a startup in the field of logistics and geolocation. In December of the same year, he founded Bright Solutions, a leading IT company providing IT solutions and services, headquartered in England.

Apart from influencing the enactment of startup-friendly policies, Oualid has been instrumental in activism against ‘bad regulations’ against startups in the North African country. For instance, his intervention ensured that Algeria’s first taxi service solely for women, Moov Services, re-launched its operations just three months after its activities were banned in Blida, Algeria’s northwestern province.