By Shruti Menon Seeboo
Twenty years ago, a room full of sceptics watched a live television signal stream over an internet connection and waited for it to fail. It did not. That moment — the launch of MyT, Mauritius’s world-first commercial IPTV service, on 11 July 2006 — became the founding myth of a brand that has since grown into one of the most trusted names in the country. Today at SVICC in Pailles, Mauritius Telecom convened the second edition of its AllMyT Summit to mark two decades of that brand and to map the next twenty years. What unfolded over two days of conferencing, keynote addresses, and industry showcases was not merely a celebration of the past. It was, as the speakers who took to the stage made clear, a declaration of intent about the future.
The AllMyT Summit brought together over 200 delegates — entrepreneurs, policymakers, technologists, and international partners — for what Veemal Gungadin, Chief Executive Officer of Mauritius Telecom, described as a moment of reckoning as much as reflection. “It all started with a bold strategy,” he told delegates. “With a bold strategy, but what we’ve been able to do over the years is really being good at execution as well. We tend to look down upon ourselves sometimes. But the truth is, if we keep executing, we keep learning, we keep being relentless about it, then this is really what has brought us ahead — the Mauritian story.” He reminded the room that the MyT brand had begun as a television product and had evolved, over two decades, into something far broader. “MyT started becoming for connectivity, for 5G connectivity, for fiber connectivity in our houses. MyT started becoming a brand for your businesses as well. So much so that today, MyT is a brand with MyT Money as well. It’s a brand that encapsulates all forms of digital interactions that we have in Mauritius.”
A vision forged thirty years ago
It was Sarat Lallah, Chairman of Mauritius Telecom, who provided the summit with its most personal and historically grounded address — one that traced the arc of Mauritius’s digital journey from the laying of the first telephone cable to the present moment. He recalled the atmosphere surrounding the launch of MyT in 2006 with striking vividness. “I still vividly remember the tension surrounding the launch night,” he said. “The technology was cutting edge for its time, and we were quite literally working down the wire before the curtains went up. The team was nervous. I said to myself, would the live demo pass the test? Despite the prophets of doom who insisted Mauritius wasn’t ready for internet-based television, you, Prime Minister, you trusted us. And because of that trust, we dared and we delivered.”
Lallah, who served as CEO of Mauritius Telecom at the time of MyT’s launch, traced the digital story back even further — to 1883, when the telephone became operational in Mauritius just six years after Alexander Graham Bell’s invention, connecting Government House in Port Louis to the Governor’s residence. He recalled the 1990s digital sprint that laid the foundations for everything that followed. “After the green paper followed by the white paper on telecommunications, it was a sprint to establish a legislative framework that would bring about the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector,” he said. “We pushed heavily for the computerisation of the civil service. We rolled out the National IT Strategy Plan, Phase 1 and Phase 2. Infotech, our national exhibition, became an annual event.” He pointed to 1999 as a watershed year. “Our international connectivity was born in 1999 when we signed the SAFE Submarine Cable Agreement, officially putting Mauritius on the information super highway.” That decision, he argued, was the foundation on which everything else was built. “It was a vision forged 30 years ago to exploit and export IT. Today, more than 35,000 people work in the ICT sector. It stands proudly as the fifth pillar of our economy.”
Looking to the present, Lallah was direct in his acknowledgement of the Prime Minister’s role in the country’s digital ambitions. “Before concluding, Honourable Prime Minister, I will affirm clearly today that you started the very first wave of our digital transformation during your first mandate as PM from 1995 to 2000,” he said. “Now, during your fourth mandate as Prime Minister, the entire ICT sector has immense reason to be proud. Your vision for AI integration, cloud computing services, expanded international subsea connectivity, and specialised training is exactly what the industry needs today.” He singled out the Special Economic Zone at Côte d’Or as a landmark commitment. “Your flagship project — the creation of the 83-arpent Special Economic Zone — is masterfully designed to attract high-tech investment in data centres and next-generation digital services. With the immense emphasis you have placed on technology in your recent budget, you’re actively steering Mauritius directly into the second wave of digital transformation. The groundwork is laid. The future is now for our younger generations to play, to build upon, and to see.”
Building the architecture of trust
ICT Minister Avinash Ramtohul brought to the summit a perspective that connected the ambitions of the digital economy to the less glamorous but absolutely essential work of governance, data protection, and regulatory reform. He opened by drawing a line of continuity that stretched back to 1971. “In 1971, when SSR was the Prime Minister, this is when the first department of IT was established in Mauritius by the name of the Data Processing Division, tasked with preparing the payroll for government employees back then,” he said. “And that was the first seed. And that legacy continued, and it is continuing.”
His address was candid about the scale of the challenge Mauritius faces. “Our country is at a crossroads at the moment with regards to digital transformation,” he said. “Decisions we will make today will impact generations. This is why it is critical that we look into the right direction.” He pointed to a troubling trend in the ICT sector’s contribution to GDP — falling from 7.4 percent in 2014 to 5.4 percent a decade later — and was clear about the imperative to reverse it. “We want to move the needle upwards. And one of the elements that is critical there is the establishment of a proper innovation ecosystem for AI. Because when we talk about digital transformation now, the conversation is not DT anymore. It is AI because it is all shifting into that direction.”
Central to the Minister’s vision was the question of data — its availability, its quality, and the trust that citizens and institutions must be able to place in it. “Without availability of data, we can forget about AI. Without the trust in data, we can forget about AI,” he said. He cited a striking example to illustrate the urgency of better data governance — personal information about driving licences discarded outside a police station, visible to anyone who passed. “That is totally unacceptable,” he said. “Therefore, we want to be in a country where personal data is properly managed in the way it should be according to the Data Protection Act.” He announced that from January 2027, new data protection regulations would come into force, giving companies five months to comply.
On the issue of online harms, the Minister was equally direct. “We have seen, and are seeing continuously, how deepfake videos are being used to troll people,” he said. “In an additionally civilised nation, this is totally unacceptable.” He also highlighted the launch of the KaliteNet application, which empowers citizens to test network quality anywhere on the island in real time, and the Corek app — which now allows citizens to photograph water leakages and have them automatically assessed by an AI module for severity and GPS location. “Gone are the days when foreign companies would collect data from here, analyse it, and come back to sell that data to us,” he said. “Our customers, our consumers are empowered.” He closed with a pointed reminder that Mauritius must look beyond its borders. “Africa will be hosting the youth’s largest population by 2035, 2040, and it is attracting a lot of interest. We are next door and we shouldn’t let that opportunity go.”
The AI revolution must not happen to Mauritius — It must happen with Mauritius
It was Prime Minister Dr. the Hon. Navin Ramgoolam who brought the Summit to its most charged and forward-looking moment. Speaking just days after presenting his 2026–2027 budget — which set out some of the most ambitious technology commitments in the country’s recent history — he arrived at Pailles with news that underlined his government’s seriousness of purpose. “The AI revolution must not be something that happens to Mauritius,” he told delegates. “It must be something that Mauritius prepares for, participates and benefits from. Now, 27 days ago, less than a month, we are delivering on that promise today.”
The most significant announcement of his address was Mauritius’s participation in the America-India Connect Subsea Cable Programme — a major international infrastructure project that will add a new layer of resilience to the country’s digital connectivity and strengthen strategic links to South Africa, India, and Singapore. The Prime Minister described how the opportunity had come about. “In February of this year, I participated in the AI Summit in New Delhi,” he said. “I listened to the CEO of Google, Mr Sundar Pichai. He spoke of an ambitious project connecting the United States to India and then the Far East through underwater sea cables. I said, why couldn’t Mauritius benefit from this? We are well placed geographically.” He raised the matter directly with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Prime Minister Modi took up the matter with Mr Pichai, and I’m pleased to confirm today that Mauritius will participate in the America-India Connect Subsea Cable Programme. I’m sure you realise this is a major, major leap forward.”
On artificial intelligence, the Prime Minister pushed back robustly against those who had questioned the emphasis placed on it in the budget. “AI must not only be seen as the technology agenda,” he said, quoting the former Prime Minister of France. “It is an economic agenda. It is a skills agenda. It is a competitiveness agenda. And it must remain a people’s agenda.” He reaffirmed the commitment, announced in the budget, to train 50,000 Mauritians in practical AI use over the coming year. “This is not a slope, it’s not just words,” he said. “In fact, with the launching of this summit today, it is becoming a reality.” He also confirmed that the MyT Learn platform — developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Education — would be rolled out nationwide to every Grade 9 student and every secondary school teacher, including those in Rodrigues. “We are giving a whole generation the tools to learn, to adapt, to thrive in the age of AI.”
He also announced that Mauritius Telecom and Amazon Web Services would be signing a memorandum of understanding at the summit — a partnership he described as emblematic of a larger ambition. “Such partnerships are not, for us, just about importing technology,” he said. “There is a story about Mauritius becoming a producer, a host, a regional reference for the kind of digital infrastructure that the world increasingly needs and that the African continent in particular will need to adopt. This is what we mean when we speak of Mauritius as a digital bridge between Africa and Asia.”
The Prime Minister closed with a reflection on the nature of leadership and the courage that bold decisions require — drawing on the story of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam’s decision to build a university in Mauritius, against the advice of every expert who told him it was not cost-effective. “He took the report, put it on the table, and said, ‘You people are very able, but no vision,'” he recounted. “Not only did I want to build the university, I want to do it in a place where it can be expanded. And look today — there are no seats available in our university.” The parallel to the present moment was explicit. “These prophets of doom are still around today. And I can tell you, we will prove them wrong. We must move ahead and do what we have to do because that is what we were elected to do. We must bring this country forward.”
Connectivity, sovereignty, and the road ahead
Returning to the stage after the Prime Minister’s address, Gungadin laid out the specific pillars of Mauritius Telecom’s strategy for the coming year — organised around the vision of bridging Africa and Asia that the company announced at last year’s summit. “Beyond just vision, what are the actions that we have been putting into place?” he asked. Those actions are organised around five areas: connectivity, financial corridors, AI and compute, innovation, and what the company prefers to call scale-ups rather than startups. Among the partners showcased at the summit were AWS, Huawei, Mistral, Fortinet, and Lenovo — a line-up that Gungadin used to make a pointed observation about Mauritius’s unique position in the global technology landscape. “If you look at the AI world, it’s really being the game of the US, China, and Europe,” he said. “This is what we want to showcase here — that we are this neutral place where business can happen, and we can live together here and build the relevant applications here.”
He also spoke about the concept of Sovereign AI — the ambition to build not just connectivity infrastructure but genuine AI capability rooted in Mauritius, serving Mauritian and regional needs. “We’re going to show you about the kind of work that we’re doing around Sovereign AI, how do we build the infrastructure, and how are we building the capability in the country, and how we’re becoming a platform, an ecosystem, an intelligent platform that other businesses can build on.”
He closed with a thought that captured the spirit of the entire summit — the idea that the country’s past achievements are not a destination but a foundation. “Paving the way for what’s going to be coming ahead for the next 20 years,” he said. For a country that connected itself to the internet before the smartphone existed, that launched the world’s first commercial IPTV service in an era when Facebook was two years old, and that is now signing subsea cable agreements with Google and AWS in the same month it celebrates MyT’s 20th anniversary, the road ahead looks as ambitious as any it has travelled before.
