In Laâyoune, the "2018 Practical Impact Alliance Co-design Summit" at the service of young entrepreneurs in southern Morocco

Atlas Info - Morocco

 

Co-organized by the Phosboucraâ Foundation and the prestigious American University of Technology (MIT) in Laayoune (southern Morocco), this international meeting promotes a new approach to entrepreneurship based on co-design. Objective: to support young entrepreneurs towards creativity and innovation by promoting the development of collaborative solutions to local socio-economic challenges. 

This international summit at the service of social and solidarity entrepreneurship is a co-development strategy, set up by the Phosboucraâ Foundation with MIT-D-Lab of the prestigious American University of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This is a first in the Arab region for this international event that brought together young aspiring entrepreneurs, local and national entrepreneurial ecosystem actors, and members of the Practical Impact Alliance network (PIA) of MIT.

The event promotes a new approach to entrepreneurship based on co-design. This is an original training provided by MIT experts. Objective: to support young entrepreneurs towards creativity and innovation by promoting the development of collaborative solutions to local socio-economic challenges.

The MIT Practical Impact Alliance Co-Design Summit is  held each year in a different emerging country with the aim of spreading the methodology developed to foster the development of collaborative solutions at the local level of socio-economic challenges.

This event, which runs from November 25 to December 1, 2018, is part of the Phosboucraa Foundation's strategy to encourage entrepreneurship among young people. It allowed participants to present their projects to an audience committed to socio-economic development.

The summit has its originas in a meeting of two women; Saida Benhayoue, a Moroccan program director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's practical innovation program - MIT D-Lab, and Hajbouha Zoubeir, member of the Economic and Social Council and president of the Phosboucraa Foundation. A successful ambition to stimulate the socio-economic network in the southern provinces through the engagement of young people in entrepreneurial activity.

"It consists of a series of workshops designed to promote a whole new approach to local entrepreneurship based on the so-called Co-design methodology," says Benhayoune.

In a statement to ATLASINFO, Hajbouha Zoubeir, president of the phosboukraâ Foundation "wishes that the Moroccans of the world, by their skills and their expertise commit like Saida Benhayoune in other collaborative projects, in the region of the South or elsewhere in the other regions of Morocco."

Since 2016, the Phosboucraâ Foundation has been a member of PIA's international network of practitioners in the field of social innovation. Thanks to the commitment of its network of local and national partners, it is participating in a new model of collaborative development. One of its practical tools put in place is the Learning Center (LLC) which liaises with the Phosboucraâ Foundation, supporting the MIT team in recruiting local participants and engaging several actors around the project and ensures the realization of the activities training. The main areas of intervention of the Learning Center are:

  • The development of teaching skills of D-Lab's methods for the emergence of youth.
  • Strengthening a new mindset towards entrepreneurship that consolidates the principles of optimism, curiosity, autonomy and sharing.
  • The development of a network of participants willing to cooperate to reinforce the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the region.

The initiative is part of a development strategy put in place by the Foundation to stimulate the socio-economic network in the southern provinces through the engagement of young people in entrepreneurial activity.

Since 2016, the Phosboucraâ Foundation has been a member of PIA's international network of social innovation practitioners, and is responsible for organizing this summit through its economic and logistical support for project planning and implementation activities. Thanks to the commitment of its network of local and national partners to participate in this new model of collaborative development.

The project is supported locally by teams from the Learning Center in Laayoune and Dakhla, who are responsible for liaising with the Phosboucraâ Foundation, supporting the MIT team in recruiting local participants and engaging local strategic actors around the project. project and ensure the logistical execution of training activities.

Since its launch in 2014, Laayoune Learning Center has recorded very encouraging results. Through a system of transversal training, not nearly 7000 young people were able to strengthen their skills and enhance their skills. Young people were able to develop their professional projects in order to participate in the revitalization of the socio-economic life of their region.

The Learning Center of Laayoune, has developed a program to strengthen community projects run by young people in the city
In 2016, the Laayoune Learning Center launched a program dedicated to women, which today makes it possible to supervise 95 women and support them in their local entrepreneurship projects.

After a process of preparation and training that lasted 18 months, a week of workshops (November 25 to December 1), the different groups of young entrepreneurs presented, during the evening of Friday, November 30, at the convention center of Laayoune the different projects and prototypes they have made.

MIT D-Lab will continue to collaborate with the Phosboucraâ Foundation with a follow-up and follow-up plan for projects and other proposals initiated at the summit.

Google tranlsation of original article in French in AtlasInfo