SAP Shoroq in Morocco

The last three days we were busy with analyzing all the information that we collected so far. Marek built a dashboard containing all the costs and how the money is spent. In addition, we included data about the start-ups like the total number of start-ups, if they received the seed funding and the number of jobs they created. From all these data we could derive further KPIs: how much did a job cost, how much money is needed to reach the overall goal until 2020 and much more. Janet went on with the work on Tamkeen. Tamkeen Initiative is an awareness program with the objective to promote social entrepreneurship and social innovation in public high schools. At last, I finished a first draft of the Dare Space analysis together with clear recommendations what should be changed to make it even more attractive than before. Example data from our dashboard I want to use the chance to tell you about some of the nice start-ups that are incubated within Dare Inc. We sat together with them i...

New week, new insights. :) Welcome back to week 2 of my social sabbatical experience. We started our workday with a recap of the scope of work alignment that we had on Friday evening. As a consequence, we agreed that there is no big change to our scope but that we set our focus a little different. Before our understanding was that we create an impact analysis of the incubator and concentrate on the financial sustainability. While these aspects are still relevant, Adnane provided us with the guidance to take a closer look into how their main programs (Dare Inc., Dare Space and Tamkeen) can be scaled up.  For this week, we separated our work, Janet will focus on Tamkeen and the overall financial model, Marek takes care of Dare Inc. and I am responsible for Dare Space. Dare Space is the co-working space of MCISE. Social entrepreneurs can go there to "connect and collaborate, share opinions and ideas, build partnerships, network, study and work". All of this for a daily, wee...

This weekend was all about discovering Rabat, as we will most probably be out of town the upcoming weekends. Follow me on my picture tour and be inspired to visit this nice place. We ended the last post with a riddle: what was our plan for Saturday morning that can be described with the words water, waves, boards? Exactly: Surfing! We booked a surfing training for two hours. For me it was my second time as I had one week of surfing last October in Taghazout, Morocco. Caroline and me after surfing View from the changing room After surfing, I walked once again to the Kasbah des Oudayas as I wanted to take another look at the nice white and blue colored houses and alleys. Kasbah des Oudayas With all that surfing and walking we deserved some relaxation, so we booked a session for Hammam. For many of us it was the first time to experience the islamic variant of a sauna that starts with relaxation in a hot, steamy room, followed by a full body wash and massage and e...

The first work week is already over. Unbelievable how fast time went by. I want to close the week with less work details but instead with 2 nice events. But let's first cover work shortly. Today was all about wrapping up the tasks we started: Finishing the survey, scope of work and market research. In the afternoon we went through all of the results with Marwane, Ahmed and later Adnane to get feedback on the scope for the remaining 3 weeks and also on the Business Model Canvas and the survey questions. It turned out that they were quite happy that we worked on a Business Model Canvas as they haven't done one for MCISE before although they have teached this since years. We learned as well that we also have to incorporate some updates into the scope and to add some more detailed questions to our survey. So our plan of sending that out to the start-ups didn't work out, we have to finish that early next week latest. By the way, we got introduced on the MCISE Facebook p...

The last two days were flying by quickly. To stick with the metaphor from the days before, we were still busy with cleaning up the house. But day by day everything gets clearer and we have quite a good understanding of the ecosystem, we are working in. Wednesday morning started with an insight of the financial details of MCISE. This helped us to get the context for our task about the financial sustainability. In the afternoon we split our tasks: Janet prepared our project plan and refined some details of the scope of work, Marek collected questions for our impact survey and I created a Business Model Canvas for MCISE. The canvas helps us to structure the key partners, resources, communication channels, value proposition, etc. and list the main cost drivers and revenue streams. Before leaving the office, we sat together and went through all our results to incorporate everybody's feedback. I should not forget to mention our special guest, a cute cat from the neighborhood, that w...

Yesterday, the social sabbatical was officially kicked off. All local clients came together in our hotel to meet their team and to introduce their organization to the other teams: USAID career center, Enactus, StartUp Maroc and MCISE. The event was started with an introduction about CSR at SAP by Sarah, our mentor, and Nabil from SAP Morocco, followed by an introduction on Pyxera from Kelsey. Together with our client, we also met our project assistant, Wissam, who supports us in translating French into English whenever needed. Kelsey Figone talking about Pyxera MCISE team (from left): Janet, Marek, me, next to us on the right Marwane from MCISE After the event, we headed over to the MCISE office, where we had a very interesting session with Marwane. He explained to us the history of MCISE, its structure and offerings and finally covered a lot of details about our scope for the next weeks. MCISE was founded in 2012 and started the Dare Inc. program, our main focus, in...

Finally, we all arrived safely in Rabat. The first hours were all about getting to know each other and finding some nice places in this amazing city.  It all started at the airport in Paris, where the first 6 people met each other, one-by-one joining the growing group at the gate for the flight to Rabat. Knowing them only by picture, it was quite difficult to find out who was the one, we were looking for. Soon we were busy with finding out the first details of everybody.  As some people were arriving late, we had some hours to walk through Rabat and discover the neighborhood, so we took a walk to the beach. Surfer spot at Rabat's beach side View on Kasbah Des Oudayas Typical Moroccan Market - Souks In the evening, we all met with Malika and Mehdi, our Pyxera contacts from Rabat, and with Kelsey, the Pyxera Program Coordinator. They took us to a nice traditional Moroccan restaurant, where we could try some of the typical food like Tajines, different s...