At ICTAM Expo 2026 in Lilongwe, Dr Wisely Phiri of Sparc Systems Limited presented "Sparc’s Blueprint for Scaling ICT Services Exports Across Africa and Beyond," a concrete plan to turn Malawi into a regional exporter of digital services.
The announcement comes as attention on malawi’s tech sector spikes: Phiri highlighted that national ICT services exports rose from roughly US$70 million in 2020 to about US$154 million in 2023, a jump that has government and investors watching. The expo was formally opened by Dr. Shadric Namalomba at the Bingu International Convention Centre while the Ministry of ICT reiterated an ambition to build a connected, secure and inclusive digital nation over the next three years.
Phiri laid out the pieces of the roadmap: scale existing home‑grown platforms for finance, agriculture, education, human resources, construction and customer relationship management and export them across the continent. Sparc already sells enterprise infrastructure, cloud solutions, cybersecurity, software development, digital transformation, data‑centre services and ICT training, and operates in Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique and Rwanda — a cross‑border base the company says it will use to push deeper into African markets.
The export figures are the story’s weight. Moving from about US$70 million to US$154 million in three years shows Malawian firms have shifted from serving domestic demand to winning paid projects abroad. Phiri framed that shift as proof the sector can compete beyond national borders and as the rationale for a deliberate export strategy tied to products and services, not just consultancy or outsourcing contracts.
But Sparc’s presentation made clear the advance is incomplete: the company says the export data and the beginnings of infrastructure investment are real, yet scaling faster across Africa is the pressing problem. "The export data is real, the demand exists, and the infrastructure is being built. The question now is how quickly we can scale our capabilities across Africa," Phiri said, stressing that moving from pilot projects and single‑market wins to continent‑wide operations will require synchronized investment, deeper connectivity and trained teams on the ground in multiple jurisdictions.
The friction matters because a blueprint alone does not create data centres, undersea links, regulatory harmonization or the engineers to run them. Sparc’s five‑country footprint gives it routes to market, but the company and the Ministry of ICT have not yet attached the specific investments, timelines or policy measures that would make rapid scaling plausible. That gap is the practical barrier between a doubling of exports and sustained continental expansion.
The most consequential unanswered question now is whether public and private leaders will commit the capital and coordinated policy Phiri’s plan implies — and whether they can do it within the three‑year window the government has set for building an inclusive digital nation. If Malawi can answer that, the country’s recent export surge could become the start of a regional technology platform; if it cannot, growth may stall at the current scale.
