Ben Guerir – Taking part in a conference on “entrepreneurship” held on the main Mohamed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) campus in Ben Guerir, Yassine Laghzioui, Director of Entrepreneurship and Venturing at UM6P, emphasized the urgent need for Africa to develop a vibrant start-up ecosystem.
Citing resilience as a key quality for overcoming obstacles facing businesses in Africa, the panel went on to stress the value of having a resilient outlook and the capacity to change course when necessary.
According to Laghzioui, the key challenges facing the African continent are market fragmentation and regulatory hurdles.
While discussing the many challenges facing venture capital in Africa, he emphasized the necessity of bridging the gap between risk appetite, market perception, and actual investment opportunities.
In an interview with Morocco World News (MWN) on the sidelines of the conference, he said that in order for businesses to thrive and scale effectively, we need “to address these challenges urgently to develop the start-up ecosystem in Africa.”
Yassine Laghzioui taking part in the panel discussion
By addressing these challenges, rational solutions will also be figured out to develop the strat-up ecosystem in Africa, Laghzioui explained.
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The UM6P official proposed several solutions, including developing a cross-border framework to streamline the process of scaling within the continent, to address these common challenges.
Another alternative solution is to push educational institutions to align their curricula with the demands of the start-ups, he explained.
This solution can be used if the challenge is related to the skills of the workforce, meaning if there is a significant mismatch between the skills of new graduates and the real needs.
Another approach, Laghzioui added, is the one that UM6P is implementing, which entails creating startup support programs where students can turn their ideas into actual businesses.
Laghzioui affirmed that 50% of the founders in UM6P’s programs are students, a statistic that makes the university quite proud.
“I think there is no better way to learn entrepreneurship than being an entrepreneur,” Laghzioui concluded.
