From Alexander Village to Morocco

Brooklyn, New York. On 27 October 2026, the African Smart Cities & Innovation Congress (ASCIC 2026) opened in Laayoune, the largest city of the Western Sahara. The opening ceremony brought official speeches and panels of government and industry. It also brought the signing of agreements and the launch of a student hackathon.

In the middle of that ceremony stood a keynote speaker from Alexander Village, Guyana. His name is Mike Singh. The road from Alexander Village to Laayoune is long. That is why young Guyanese should hear how he travelled it.

The Man at the Podium

Mike Singh is Chairman of the Telkom Caribe Group, listed by the congress as TC Energy & ICT Infra. His work sits where nations connect to the world or fall behind it. Specifically, it covers the cables, networks and data centres that carry the digital economy.

His conference biography describes him as an investor in the Indus-Americas Subsea Cable System, known as the BRICS Cable. The cable was designed to ease bandwidth limits across the emerging markets of the Southern Hemisphere. Telkom Caribe is its Caribbean Basin partner. The firm also invests in data centres and outsourced business services across the region.

Moreover, he has advised Vodafone Group, Airtel, MTN and other global carriers on growth in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. He also chairs the IPv6 Council for Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition, he sits on the advisory board of the Smart Cities Council, one of the congress partners.

That career rests on a simple idea. Whoever controls the pipes of the twenty-first century controls a good part of its wealth. For that reason, through Telkom Caribe, a son of Alexander Village has worked to give the Caribbean a stake in those pipes.

Whoever controls the pipes of the twenty-first century controls a good part of its wealth.

— T.R.B.

The Congress and the Room

ASCIC 2026 ran from 27 to 29 October. Its theme was “Intelligent Turn: Drawing on Digital Technologies for Sustainable Governance.” Ibn Zohr University and Abdelmalek Essaadi University organised it with the technology schools of Tetouan and Laayoune and the Mediterranean Smart Cities Forum. Its tracks ranged from AI and digital government to water, energy, mobility and climate resilience.

Speakers also came from Morocco, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, the Gulf, Libya, Colombia, Kenya, Monaco, South Korea and the United States. Accepted papers go to a Springer proceedings series. Meanwhile, a student hackathon ran alongside the sessions, open to university teams of three to five.

Still, the most telling detail was the audience. The hall was full on opening morning, and young people filled most of the seats. After all, they will build, run and govern the cities under discussion. Indeed, Mike Singh spoke to them as much as to the officials in the front row.

What Laayoune Asks of Guyana

Back home, meanwhile, Guyana is spending oil money on roads, bridges, housing and new towns. For this reason, the questions in Laayoune are our questions too. First, how do we use data to decide where a school or a clinic should go? Similarly, how do we make public services work online for a farmer in Region Six and a clerk in Georgetown alike? Finally, who owns the networks those services run on?

A smart city is not a city full of gadgets. Instead, it is a city where government uses information to serve people better. It is also a city where citizens can see what government is doing. This congress, in other words, put governance first and technology second. That is the right order.

Mike Singh’s presence also says something about Guyanese talent. In fact, our people stand at the front of rooms like this one across Africa, Asia and the Americas. The task at home, therefore, is to build institutions, universities and firms that let that talent work for Guyana too.

From Alexander Village and Back

A line runs from the streets of Alexander Village to a podium in the Sahara. It runs through study, work and risk. It also runs through years of building relationships across continents. Above all, none of it was handed over.

To the young reader in Guyana: the conversations that will shape tomorrow’s cities are happening now. The full ASCIC 2026 programme is at ascic.org. Read it, and then ask where Guyana fits.

A Guyanese voice was in the room in Laayoune.

The next one could be yours.