Train young people in digital technology, support innovative entrepreneurship and strengthen their employability. Such is the ambition pursued by the Orange Group, which has just inaugurated its first “Orange Digital Center” (ODC) in Morocco in Rabat.
Open and accessible free of charge to all, the ODC in Rabat is the 10th in the Middle East and Africa region, said the managers of this modern and well-equipped space during a guided tour organized on Wednesday March 23 on the premises.
Launched with German cooperation, the “Orange Digital Center” space brings together in one place four strategic programs of the telecommunications group: a “Code School”, a digital manufacturing workshop “Solidarity FabLab”, a start-up accelerator “Orange Fab”, supported by “Orange Ventures”, the investment fund of the Orange Group.
The ODC in Rabat is “a center where everyone can come and learn to code. It offers an opportunity for future entrepreneurs, the new Steve Jobs, to set up projects and materialize them,” said Hendrik Kasteel, CEO of Orange Morocco, in a satisfied tone.
The latter will explain a little later that the programs implemented by the telecommunications operator with the support of its partners “help us achieve our objectives, which consist in giving young people the keys to improving their digital skills in order to support their employability and contribute to the entrepreneurial ecosystem”.
Indeed, as noted by Nadia Mrabi Taibi, CSR manager and Orange Digital Center Morocco, throughout this guided tour: “The School of Code allows young people to learn more regarding new technologies and to refine their skills digital”.
The center is aimed at young graduates or non-graduates and those who are in professional retraining. “It is very important to keep this point in mind because it is not only those who are in school who are going to be trained, but also those who do not have access to these technological training courses”, a- she wanted to clarify.
“The school of code makes it possible to open ODC Clubs at the university level to keep this connection with all the partners and the students”, she continued, indicating that partnerships have been established with universities in order to serve other regions of the Kingdom.
According to his explanations, “we try to have the maximum of skills and to be surrounded by partners who bring us both pedagogy and content”, adding that regarding thirty training sessions have been organized on new technologies.
It is important to specify that all the programs provided in this space range from digital training, 90% of which are practical, to support for project leaders, including the acceleration of startups and investment in them. , noted the Orange Morocco top management in its communication.
About the ODC Clubs, as Hendrik Kasteel mentioned in his statement, the group plans to open several soon across the Kingdom, starting with Hassan II University in Casablanca.
“The Solidarity FabLab is a digital manufacturing space that attracts a lot of young people. Young people work on a project there and can fine-tune their prototype on site. We are therefore in creation mode, thanks to the equipment available on site”, underlined Nadia Mrabi Taibi.
About “Orange Fab”, it should be noted that this program has an investment fund of 50 million euros dedicated to Africa and the team in charge of ODC Morocco hopes to capture 40 % of this amount through a number of initiatives put in place and which will allow the emergence of several mature Moroccan startups.
“We are very delighted to be surrounded by magnificent and serious partners, including the Ministry of Education, universities of higher education and a lot of people who accompany us”, rejoiced Nadia Mrabi, manager CSR and ODC Morocco.
Addressing young people who would be interested in the Orange Digital Center, Zakia Hajjaji, director of human resources at Orange Morocco, invited them to meet on the platform put online for this purpose to discover the “trainings that we are launching , but also the entrepreneurship and support program”.
Anyway, Hendrik Kasteel, Is convinced that the ODC of Rabat will welcome thousands of young Moroccan talents and allow them to develop their skills, their projects or their digital startups. “This is just the beginning for this initiative which will have a real impact on society as a whole,” he concluded.
Note that all programs are free.
Alain Bouithy
