The structures supported during the first three cycles succeeded in raising more than 3.2 million dinars to support more than 215 entrepreneurs in the regions and raise awareness of entrepreneurship among more than 2,500 young people.
“Flat6Labs” Tunisia, a startup seed and start-up program seeking to promote the growth of Tunisian startups and provide a source of supply for the Venture Capital industry in Tunisia, organized, on Thursday January 26, the 4e Hub Day of the “Ignite Tunisia” project.
27 structures supported
Faten Aissa, associate director at “Flat6Labs”, indicated that the “Ignite Tunisia” program was launched in 2020, with the main objective of strengthening and supporting the capacity of the 27 support structures, located in the different regions of the country, and support them in their approach to entrepreneurs and their communities in order to energize regional ecosystems.
“Today, we are proud to support around thirty structures in 19 regions which come from the public, private and associative sectors. They are chosen on the basis of 270 applications. They benefited from more than 245 training and individual support sessions led by 64 national and international experts for the implementation of 27 support programs. The structures supported during the first three cycles succeeded in raising more than 3.2 million dinars to support more than 215 entrepreneurs in the regions and raise awareness of entrepreneurship among more than 2,500 young people. Through the program, we have been able to provide these structures with a web platform to support them in setting up their support program, from the launch of the call for applications until the end of the program,” she said.
Only 10% of students create their own businesses
During this 4e Hub Day, seven support programs were presented by public structures. Among these programs, we cite Maw-Hub, a pre-incubator created at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Nabeul (Isban), which is intended to support student entrepreneurs until the creation of their entrepreneurial project.
According to Raya Ben Guiza, assistant professor at Isban and founder of Maw-Hub, this program has helped to sow the entrepreneurial spirit in the Institute and has enabled students to have aid for a creative and cultural industry in Tunisia. .
“Each year, we have the chance to support 100 students in interior architecture, audiovisual, product design, ceramics… and thanks to “Maw-Hub”, the ecosystem of the institute is equipped with a super basket national academic partners and regional state institutions with whom we are fortunate to have signed agreements with private support structures that help us get out of our comfort zone, “she said.
“However, she added, we are faced with a real concern for entrepreneurship; less than 10% of our professional master’s students create their own businesses each year. And among these rare companies created, very few are those that pass the fateful 18-month phase. Faced with this situation and to encourage talent, we have found a solution; we launched the “Maw-Hub” program, a tailor-made pre-incubation program at the institute through which we supported our professional master’s students until the creation of their businesses”.
With regard to the roadmap, she specified that with the academic course, at each start of the academic year (September-October), we organize campaigns to raise awareness of entrepreneurship and we launch calls for applications. From November to December, we organize “hackathons” to select the most motivated people and from January, we start the “Maw-Hub” pre-incubation course to accompany them until May or September, which corresponds to the defense dates during which they will come to pitch their projects like professionals and launch their businesses.
“Our goal is to reach more than 350 students with entrepreneurship awareness each year, all levels combined. We also intend to support ten projects each year, in order to be able to create three or five companies in May or September. As far as the economic model is concerned, we are a state institution and therefore, we have our revenue resources, we have training activities via incubators and event activities. But to sustain our activities, to have lasting economic and financial independence, we rely on crowdfunding through donors, through private sponsorship, state refinancing and also through subscriptions. Today, the needs are around 200,000 dinars to finance three cohorts of students over the next 18 months. Thanks to these amounts, we will pay the experts, have dedicated human resources to manage this pre-incubation program, have a communication budget, but, above all, provide our students with a fund that will be able to help them take off and start their business capital,” she explained.
First prize for the best innovative business idea
For her part, Nadia Chikh Rouhou, teacher at Iset Béja, specified that in 2020, a program called “Tamayoz”, which aims to promote PFEs in innovative technologies to transform them into startup, was born. It is, in fact, a pre-incubation program, intended for students with projects of innovative ideas by offering them “networking”, coaching, quality training linked to the entrepreneurial, regional ecosystem and national.
“It’s a tailor-made program, adapted to our needs in our structure. We managed to support more than 60 students. And there is plenty of good news there. In 2022, two students at I’Iset Béja (Mohamed Aziz Laâbid and Tayssir Khemiri) won the first prize for the best innovative entrepreneurial idea at the national level. They got there through our pre-incubation program. Today, we aim to be a major catalyst for innovation on a regional and national scale through the accompaniment of students who want to create an impact and who want to change the world. Since 2020, we have managed to raise 100,000 dinars of funds and establish 10 partnerships,” she said. With regard to financing, Chikh Rouhou specified, “Today, we are aiming for more financial independence and we want to work more on sponsorship at 50%, fundraising at 40% and the budget of Iset at 10%”. On another level, she indicated that of the 100 PFEs produced each year at Iset Béja, 20% have a strong innovative technological potential. However, these PFE remain neglected on the shelves of the library. Thus, to enhance these PFE and transform them into innovative projects, a roadmap has been put in place. The latter aims to raise awareness among 100 students, support 30 students, and have 15 prototypes tested. “And following Tamayoz” and in collaboration with the Béja Business Center, we are seeking to have five filings for obtaining the grant and to have three labeled start-ups. To achieve all these objectives, we need 100,000 dinars which will be distributed at the rate of 10% for communication and marketing, 15% for human resources, 20% for the prototyping loan, 25% for the remuneration of experts and of coaches and 30% for events”, she further underlined.
female entrepreneurship on time, but…
Ghazi Mhiri, Program manager of “Costart”, an incubator located at the Sfax technology park, told us that they participated in this program in its second cohort and that they benefited from this program with the expertise of experts , having given all the necessary knowledge to implement the new projects in Sfax and “Costart”.
“Through the ”Ignite” program, we have benefited from expertise on an international scale from London, Brittany, etc., particularly in terms of fundraising and the level of international market integration. We are planning other fundraisers for start-ups and currently, we are in the process of preparing a start-up to raise 100 million dinars in the digital management sector (workflow management). This networking network has helped us to expand our network of partners where we have succeeded in creating new partnerships with support institutes in other regions and in developing a support program for young students with student-status. entrepreneur with a new program called Costart Club Chapter,” he said.
Mhiri added: “We basically worked on everything that is technological, but we specialize more with ”Ignite” in everything that is ‘Deep Tech’, dedicated to women. This is why we are trying to develop a new “Deep Tech Woman” program, which has already started in April 2022. Currently, we are in the second phase to launch the second cohort which aims to support around ten women . The first was already closed on January 12, 2023, with nine startups which have already launched their projects in various themes, such as industry 4.0, robotics, “Health Tech”, “Biotech”. This program ends on July 7 and we aim to launch other programs and other cohorts still specialized in “Deep Tech”.
For his part, Jalel Ben Romdhane, co-founder of 1 KUB, the first and only incubator dedicated to female entrepreneurship in Tunisia, specified that this program was part of the “Ignite” program in the third cohort. “It allowed us to get to know our colleagues, players in the ecosystem, other structures and other experiences abroad…, and to be able to build programs together thanks to which we were able to get the necessary assistance. . A whole team is working together to succeed in this process and ease the construction of our program”.
Ben Romdhane added: “Currently, we have helped a structure registered in this 4e cohort to integrate this program to be able to take advantage of the opportunity offered and we are on two other programs. We also intend to capitalize and extend our field of action to try to cover the entire Republic and possibly explore other opportunities in e-commerce or agritech. But unfortunately, in Tunisia, female entrepreneurship is a great paradox; only 3% of women are founders of labeled start-ups, whereas we have enormous potential, whether at the university level or at the level of the population. To do this, we need to try to boost female entrepreneurship, but with specific programs and knowledgeable people, because we would like to see female success stories in Tunisia. This is our next challenge,” he told us.
