Benin has undertaken for several years to become the “digital district” of the continent. A large-scale project has been set up to reveal the country's potential in terms of innovation.

Sèmè City, the "city of knowledge and innovation" wants to be one of the jewels of the Beninese economy in the coming years. Five years after its launch, the project is still under construction. Located in the south of the country, the municipality of Sèmè Podji is especially famous for its proximity to Nigeria or for the religious pilgrimage of celestial Christianity which takes place there, which began a few years ago to become known in a completely different field.
Like the Kenyan Konza Technopolis or the Kigali Innovation City (KIC) in Rwanda, this smart city project is based on three strategic pillars, namely: training, entrepreneurship and research.
The objective is to build a vast center providing talent on an area of more than 200 hectares. For the government, this project should make it possible to “promote the emergence of centers of excellence in higher education and scientific research, encourage the emergence of national champions in innovative fields, and thus improve the employability of young people” who today form the majority of the population, as in most African countries.