Kolda: Fouladou connects his youth

At the end of his second day of tour, the Minister of Communication, Telecommunications and Digital Affairs, Alioune Sall, stopped at the Open Digital Space (Eno) in Kolda. Between technological ambition and rural realities, the government wants to make connectivity the new lever of territorial equity.

The sun sets over the roofs of Kolda, stretching the shadows on the lateritic earth of Fouladou. Here, pride is second nature, a “quiet pride” as Alioune Sall likes to remind us. For the Minister of Communication, Telecommunications and Digital Affairs, this step is not just another line on the agenda: it is the heart of the reactor.

By crossing the threshold of the Open Digital Space (Eno), he is not only inaugurating walls, but validating a “declaration of principles”. Breaking the digital glass ceiling. Under the hum of the air conditioners and the glare of the screens, the atmosphere is the polar opposite of the surrounding cotton fields. However, this is where the bridge flows.

“Digital technology does not only belong to those who have the means to equip themselves,” insists the minister in front of a captive audience. The issue is now human, almost carnal. Alioune Sall lists the faces of this revolution: the farmer from Medina Yéro Foula scrutinizing market prices, the trader from Vélingara in search of microfinance, or this young Koldois, without a computer, who dreams of coding the Senegal of tomorrow.

Also read: Technological New Deal: Alioune Sall launches the offensive against the digital divide in Kolda

For them, the Eno is no longer an administrative building, it is a “gateway”. And faced with criticism of the slowness of state projects, the minister brandishes the results of a marathon day: three commitments kept in twenty-four hours. “It’s not communication, it’s public action, measurable, concrete, visible,” he says, saluting in passing the shadow work of the administrator of Eno de Kolda, Saliou Fall Ndiaye, and Professor Ousmane Sall, vice-rector of the Cheikh Hamidou Kane Digital University.

But connectivity alone doesn’t feed your man. The minister is aware of this: “A connection without skills is a door without a key,” he says. Hence his promise to strengthen management: more trainers, tailor-made programs for the region and bridges built towards the local private sector. The objective is clear: no longer simply lay down “pipes”, but build actors.

As the cool night settles in Casamance, Alioune Sall sketches the horizon of a Senegal where geography would no longer be an inevitability. His credo? That a young person from Kolda can fight on equal terms with a young person from Dakar. “Not in theory, but in reality,” he adds. The minister’s tour will resume at dawn to other lands, other faces.

But this evening, in the bays of the Eno, the feeling of an irreversible march hung in the air. Fouladou is connected, and with it, a whole section of sovereign Senegal is preparing to change dimension.