As one of the Middle East’s biggest hubs for tech innovation, the Egyptian startup ecosystem has fostered a lot of the MENA region’s biggest tech startups like SWVL, Fawry, Vezeeta, and many other billion-dollar enterprises.
The active environment in the Egyptian startup ecosystem has had a burgeoning brew of new disruptive organizations.
It is safe to say that bold entrepreneurship is the driving force for economic growth and its contribution to the tackling of social challenges cannot be overstated.
Just look at the US and Japan and how their work to stimulate entrepreneurship has led them, when it comes to building a not only sustainable but thriving economy, supporting startups is a key.
Running a successful startup in countries in the Middle East, like Egypt for example, involves tackling quite unique challenges. The Middle East has quite the analytical workforce, and with the failure of many startups, comes the crucial step of applying the lessons learned.
JICA, the Japanese governmental development agency, aimed at fostering innovation by collaborating with local startups to contribute to Sustainable Developmental Goals in various countries, including -but not limited to- Egypt.
In Egypt, four startups were selected after competitive selection process among 44 applications from startups in different sectors like health, education, fintech, training and agribusiness. These four startups were top ranked with high level of expectations.
JICA support is mainly focused on developing companies’ new business from one stage to the next. This includes support on various grounds including testing and validating the product, marketing, PR activities, business model development, linkages to investors, and so on, with the support of experts in each field.
Practiq
PractiQ Digital Consultants Team was hired to provide Monitoring and Mentoring services for the selected startups. PractiQ is a management consultancy firm specialized in Managing transformations through technology-friendly enablement. PractiQ operates across different functional streams including decision support, operations efficiency and capacity building.
3 JICA success stories from startups who are building a more economically sustainable Egypt:
–Helm
Empowering persons with disabilities by providing them with training programs to prepare them for the workplace
Helm launched their sustainable e-learning platform to help bridge the gap between persons with disabilities (PWD) and employers.
By JICA’s support, not only did our team of experts help Helm reach a more than adequate maturity, but also gave them an exceptional understanding of their market for sustainable business.
It is worth mentioning that this is not the first support of JICA to people with disabilities. JICA is undergoing knowledge co-creation Program (KCCP) in which 6 members of Helm Team between 2016-2019 went through different KCCP programs such as Barrier Free Environments program, conducted in Japan which led to Helm being one of the pioneering organizations in the field of disability and promoting accessibility and inclusiveness of PWD.
-DilenyTech
Developing artificial intelligent (AI) and medical imaging technologies to empower radiology.
DilenyTech leverages the power of AI in medical imaging to improve the data-driven screening and diagnostic decisions in radiology workflow via adopting state-of-the-art AI technologies combined with the ever-growing data bank.
With JICA’s support DilenyTech gets able to solidify its business model, explore new market opportunities, pitch to investors, and meet with business experts and radiology stockholders. This contributed towards establishing themselves as a prominent player in the market. Currently DilenyTech are participating in Third Country Training Program (TCTP) by presenting their activities and innovation to African Countries through JICA program.
-Nanofib
From Laboratory to Market; Making harsh chemical-free, alcohol-free, easy-on-the-skin sanitizers and gels in an eco-friendly scope by the power of Nanotechnology.
NANO-Fib-TECH disinfectants also exhibit unique properties that fight bacteria, fungi, and viruses compared to conventional disinfectants.
JICA helped them formulate the best product, test toll manufacturing, readiness for registration, find a strong pricing model, and supported them on how to close deals with prospective clients.
To recap, JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency), the world-renowned organization, focuses on assisting governments in their development projects.
Here’s what this means to the Egyptian Entrepreneur…
It means that no matter what your radical idea is, no matter how “small” your niche is, whether it’s to make skin-friendly sanitizers, to help the disabled get accepted into coveted vocations, or if you want to help physicians make better decisions for their patient cases, there’s a way to make it work.
So long as your startup aims at sustainable development, JICA showed examples of helping people like you turn newly incepted ideas into industry goliaths that help the MENA region build strong economies that are built on empathy, cutting-edge development and economic growth.
