Fez - Injaz Al-Maghrib’s “Smart Start” To Help Young Moroccan Entrepreneurs Launch Start-Ups Through Mentoring and Financing
Fez – Injaz Al-Maghrib’s “Smart Start” To Help Young Moroccan Entrepreneurs Launch Start-Ups Through Mentoring and Financing
The INJAZ Morocco initiative, in partnership with Attijari Finances Corp and Center for Entrepreneurship and Executive Development (CEED), launched on Monday in Casablanca a new project called “Smart Start” to keep up with the new generation of young entrepreneurs developing startup projects.
This new program is directed towards young individuals who have already benefited from the pilot program “Company Program,” which is an initiative in several universities involving training and the creation of businesses.
“The SMART START program aims at deepening students’ understanding of what needs to be done before creating a business,” reads a statement in the Injaz Al-Maghrib website. The SMART START, as its name indicates, will raise students’ awareness regarding business startups and to focus on the thinking phase of their idea and explore ways “to make their project viable and sustainable.”
The statement adds: “The SMART START program immerses students in a process of long-term thinking on their choice of products or services, niche, scalability, etc.“
Yassine Mseffer, the General Director of “Injaz Al-Maghrib,” was quoted by Maghreb Arab Press as saying, “the teaching method for this program is based on learning through practice and guidance.” Attijari Finances Corp experts will supervise and mentor young individuals in local villages to help them develop their projects, all the way from “visualization to the creation of the project and linking them with sponsors.”
Attijari Finances Corp will offer a professional mentor for young entrepreneurs to assist them in carrying out a comprehensive action plan, including market research, feasibility studies, and a financial analysis for their project.
Mr. Mseffer added that “this program, which was launched in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Attijari Finances Corp, offers young project holders the opportunity to continue their [entrepreneurship] adventure outside of the academic framework by creating their own startup.”
Thirty projects have already been selected to pursue this program between 2013 and 2015.
Injaz Al-Maghrib is a non-profit association, founded in 2007 under the leadership of SNI Group (Société nationale d’investissement). It mobilizes the private sector to join efforts with youth to contribute to building a new generation of entrepreneurs.
Injaz Al-Maghrib is also a member of the Junior Achievement Worldwide (www.jaworldwide.org), a global leader in education for entrepreneurship since 1919, and a part of INJAZ Al-Arab. INJAZ Al-Maghrib adapted programs to fit the Moroccan context, and “to bring in students to create a small company, to master the basics of finance or to prepare them for the challenges of working life.”
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