The first national tour of Startup Weekend, organized by the StartUp Maroc association, in partnership with OCP Entrepreneurship Network, has just completed its journey, with twelve editions to its credit, organized in twelve cities of the Kingdom.

Launched in April 2014, the national tour was inspired by the success of the nine previous editions of Startup Weekends organized since 2011 in 5 cities of the Kingdom. Thus, the association decided to go and meet young people passionate about entrepreneurship in the different regions of the Kingdom (Khouribga, Agadir, Safi, Rabat, El Youssoufia, El Jadida, Casablanca, Fes, Tangier, Oujda, Meknes & Laayoune).

With more than 7,650 registered, 2,000 young people accompanied carrying more than 600 startup ideas, the tour was a real success, according to the organizers, who were able, thanks to the support of more than 100 entrepreneur mentors and experts, to make these young people benefit from thousands of hours of training. Note that the last stop of the tour, organized recently in Laayoune, saw the presence of 130 participants, partners, and mentors. More than 41 young idea carriers succeeded each other on the podium of the Startup Weekend to present their project in 60 seconds and express their needs in order to constitute their teams. At the end of this exercise, 12 projects were selected to move from the idea phase to the development of the business model. After 54 hours of hard work, three teams were awarded during this first edition of the Startup Weekend in Laayoune. These are the projects "TechnoStore," "Lafrigue Zone," and "Halib El Marhane," which were ranked first, second, and third respectively. The "TechnoStore" project, carried by young high school students from the region, won the prize of 10,000 DH.