THE TEAMS OF THE IEEE ENTREPRENEURSHIP TUNISIA WORKSHOP

The first hybrid format of the IEEE Entrepreneurship Tunisia Workshop was conducted by IEEE Entrepreneurship, in collaboration with the Smart Africa Digital Academy (SADA), during August and September 2022 in Tunis, Tunisia.

The selected participants first met one day a week with the organizers online for two weeks before the start of the in-person workshop. The online sessions helped the participants form teams before gathering in Tunis, Tunisia for the workshop.

In the three days, 30 August – 01 September, during which they met in Tunis, Tunisia, through group exercises they learned and practiced the vital and key aspects of starting a business based on innovation and interacted with the speakers, mentors, and entrepreneurs who provided valuable inputs to each group.

The teams then completed their business plans and submitted their final business pitch videos on 09 September for evaluation by a panel of judges.

A few things that stood out in this workshop were: gender equality of the participation – it was 50% women – which we strive to achieve in every workshop, the energy levels of the Tunisian youth and their spirit to pursue entrepreneurship with impact and their familiarity with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The teams had a wide variety of ideas – robots for social support, virtual dressing rooms, hospitality app, biogas, edutech, and virtual tourism.

Meet the teams:

Health Wishes aims to create a new food mode. The alimentary compass guides platform users towards choosing and living health styles by merging nutrition, sports, health, and love of life.

Home Gold is a proposal for a biogas generator that transforms human waste into biogas.

Dress-up aims to develop a virtual fitting solution to create a smart store for fashion products.

AFERS is a proposal for an application powered by an intelligent recommendation system that helps connect event owners, managers, and coordinators with event service providers.

STBOTS is a startup founded by a group of students dedicated to helping people with severe trauma, mental health issues, and depression with sophisticated robots to advance relationships while providing necessary supervision and psychological care. Their core belief is that mental health matters.

Histo-Verse is a proposal to make museums accessible like digital time machines in the form of virtual reality. It is a virtual museum focusing on new ways of interacting with art, history, science, and technology. Histo-verse offers artisans the opportunity to make themselves known, to exhibit and sell their products – embroidery, jewelry, weaving, leather, decorative items, and pastry – through a mobile application that appears during the virtual reality experience.

Better Tomorrow aims to improve the educational system so that parents, students, and teachers have an easier life using the power of AI and behavioral analysis to solve child development issues and improve all aspects of child development. It is an educational platform and a fully-fledged child companion hub for all parents and educational institutions.

Organizing team: Ken Stauffer, Surya Raghu, Tom Monaco, Habib Kammoun, Calvain Nangue, Nadia Raharinirina, Patrick Toroitich.

Many thanks to the support from the local organizers – Habib Kammoun, Mondher Khanfir, and SADA colleagues Rym Jarou and Patrick Toroitich, who made connections between the organizing team and the participants to the various organizations of the Tunisian ecosystem for start-ups.