The Moroccan Minister for Industry Moulay Hafid Elalamy has stated that he intends to set up a start-up incubation campus in Morocco, inspired by Station F in Paris.
Station F in Paris is the largest campus dedicated to start-up businesses in the world, fostering innovation and supporting entrepreneurs with their projects through its acceleration programs. The campus covers an area of 34,000 square meters, and includes over 3000 workstations as well as conference spaces, cafés and restaurants.
Minister of Industry Moulay Hafid Elalamy wants to bring a similar innovation hub to Morocco.
“The National Digital Agency will look in to this project with those in charge of Station F in Paris,” Elalamy stated at the annual Vivatech conference in Paris last week.
While the time frame for the project is unclear, according to Moroccan newspaper L’Economiste, the Moroccan Station F will eventually bring together thousands of start-ups, from Morocco and the rest of Africa.
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It will provide financial assistance to entrepreneurs, and will also provide business skills training, like when and how to raise funds for a project.
The aim is to support a strong start-up environment in order to “move towards accelerated digital industrialization,” explained Elalamy.
The Station F project would fit in with Morocco’s broader technology strategy. In 2017, the Ministry of Industry set up the Digital Development Agency (ADD) to support the development and implementation of technology in public administrations, as well as in the private sector.
This year the ADD brought 16 Moroccan start-ups to the Vivatech conference in Paris, raising Morocco’s profile in the international tech industry, and highlighting the country’s technological potential.
Vivatech is an annual international technology exhibition bringing together more than 9000 start-ups and 1900 investors from all over the world. It is the second time Morocco has attended the event. ADD also brought 16 start-ups to the conference last year.
