Brightskies: Exporting Autonomous Driving and EV Technology from Egypt
The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector has firmly established itself as a cornerstone of Egypt's modern economy. Driven by strong government support and a rapidly expanding, highly skilled young workforce, the sector has consistently been the fastest-growing, outpacing all other economic activities.
This momentum is clearly reflected in its contribution to the national output, with ICT accounting for approximately 5.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) in fiscal year (FY) 2023/2024, according to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. Egypt’s strategic focus on digital exports has yielded significant results, with digital exports soaring to over $6.2 billion in 2023.
Against this backdrop of exponential growth and national ambition, we sit down with Hicham Arafa, COO of Brightskies, to discuss how the company is moving beyond traditional service outsourcing to become a global leader in proprietary IP, particularly in the advanced fields of electric vehicle (EV) and autonomous driving technology.
1-What is the core purpose and mission of Brightskies, and how does it differentiate itself in the competitive technology sector?
Brightskies started as a technology services company, but its core mission has always been to deliver innovative, high-value engineering to global clients.
Over the past seven years, the company has invested heavily in research and development (R&D) and built product-focused spin-offs in autonomous driving and electrification, which clearly differentiates us from pure service providers.
2-What are Brightskies’ main competitive advantages in delivering digital transformation and technology solutions?
We differentiate ourselves by combining strong engineering services with our own intellectual property (IP) in areas such as self-driving technologies and electric powertrains.
Brightskies has established two spin-offs, Bright Drive, dedicated to autonomous driving, and Bright EV, focused on electric powertrains and battery systems. This positions the group as both a services and products player.
3-Could you elaborate on the key services and solutions Brightskies offers, particularly in automotive, embedded systems, and cloud computing?
Bright Drive has developed and piloted self?driving solutions globally, including a recently demonstrated autonomous bus in Graz, Austria. This has been built with an Austrian partner and powered by our stack across perception, localization, path planning, and other self-driving domains.
Meanwhile, Bright EV focuses on electric powertrains and has already started manufacturing power batteries for light-mobility applications.
4-How has Brightskies’ financial performance evolved in recent years, and what are the key factors behind its growth?
Over the past eight years, Brightskies has recorded average year?on?year (YoY) growth of around 25–30%, which is quite strong for our segment. This performance reflects Egypt’s growing attractiveness as an engineering services hub as well as the cost efficiency and quality we deliver to our international customers.
5-Brightskies has partnered with ITIDA and academic institutions like Alexandria University. How critical are these partnerships to your innovation and market reach?
Collaboration with ITIDA and the wider government ecosystem is central to our innovation story. ITIDA’s Industry Academia Fund financed the development of our first Bright EV bus battery prototype.