MAGHRENOV deliverable 5.1: Tested service package for entrepreneurs

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological
development and demonstration under the grant agreement no. 609453.
DELIVERABLE
Project Acronym: MAGHRENOV
Grant Agreement number: 609453
Project Title: Convergence between EU and MAGHREB MPC innovation systems
in the field of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (RE&EE) –
A test-bed for fostering Euro Mediterranean Innovation Space
(EMIS)
D5.1 TESTED SERVICE PACKAGE FOR
ENTREPRENEURS
Version: 1.0
Authors:
Jordi Lopez (KIC InnoEnergy SE)
Marta Molero (KIC InnoEnergy SE)
Abdelhak Chaibi (R&D Maroc)
Internal Reviewers:
Nadia Zeddou (IRESEN)
Josep Bordonau (UPC)
Helene Ben Khemis (ANME)
Dissemination Level
P Public X
C Confidential, only for members of the consortium and the Commission Services

D5.1 Tested Service Package for Entrepreneurs
© MAGHRENOV Consortium Version 1.0 - 30/09/20142
Table of Contents
Table of Contents.............................................................................................................2
List of Tables ..................................................................................................................4
List of Figures .................................................................................................................4
2 Revision History .........................................................................................................5
Executive Summary ..........................................................................................................6
1 Introduction..............................................................................................................9
1.1 The Context and Objectives .....................................................................................9
1.2 The Structure.......................................................................................................9
2 Challenges in the Maghreb Entrepreneurship Ecosystem ....................................................... 11
2.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 11
2.2 Main Insights from Actors of the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem ........................................... 11
2.2.1 SAHAM Fondation........................................................................................... 12
2.2.2 CE3M: Association de Cluster Electronique, Mecatronique et Mecanique du Maroc. ............ 13
2.2.3 OMPIC ........................................................................................................ 14
2.2.4 UNIVERSITY HASSAN II - CASABLANCA ................................................................... 15
2.2.5 RENEWABLE ENERGIES CLUSTER OF TUNISIA. .......................................................... 16
2.3 Identification and Prioritization of Main Challenges in Business Creation .............................. 17
2.3.1 The Process ................................................................................................. 17
2.3.2 Main issues affecting the development of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Morocco and
Tunisia 18
2.3.3 Prioritizing challenges..................................................................................... 19
2.3.4 Outcomes from the exploratory analysis ............................................................... 20
3 Challenge 1: Development of Potential Entrepreneurs ......................................................... 21
3.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 21
3.2 Trainings .......................................................................................................... 22
3.3 Other Actions to Foster Entrepreneurship ................................................................... 22
3.4 Actions............................................................................................................. 23
4 Challenge 2: Identification and Selection of Good Ideas ....................................................... 24
4.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 24
4.2 Actions for Identifying and Selecting Business Ideas ....................................................... 24
4.3 Promotional Activities to Attract Business Ideas............................................................ 25
4.4 Implementation Plan ............................................................................................ 25
5 Challenge 3: Business Creation Services. The Support of Ideas and Delivery of Services: Service Package
for Entrepreneurs........................................................................................................... 27
5.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 27

5.2 Selection of Ideas................................................................................................ 27
5.3 Description of Services.......................................................................................... 28
5.3.1 Approach..................................................................................................... 28
5.3.2 Ideation ...................................................................................................... 29
5.3.3 Assessment of the Opportunity .......................................................................... 29
5.3.4 Incubation ................................................................................................... 30
5.4 Implementation of the Business Creation Services ......................................................... 31
5.4.1 Infrastructure ............................................................................................... 31
5.4.1.1 Office Space................................................................................................. 32
5.4.1.2 Facilities ..................................................................................................... 32
5.4.1.3 Organizational structure .................................................................................. 32
5.4.1.4 Collaboration in the delivery of the services .......................................................... 34
5.4.2 Selection of ideas .......................................................................................... 34
5.4.3 Ideation ...................................................................................................... 35
5.4.4 Assessment of the opportunity........................................................................... 35
5.4.5 Services Delivery ........................................................................................... 37
6 Conclusion.............................................................................................................. 44
7 References ............................................................................................................. 45

List of Tables
Table 1: Supporting services through the 3-steps approach ...........................................................8
Table 2: Methods for dissemination of Business Creation ............................................................ 24
Table 3: Guidelines for implementing the actions to identify and attract business ideas ...................... 27
Table 4: List of services and activities within the business creation support..................................... 29
Table 5: HHRR Definition.................................................................................................. 34
Table 6: Implementation guidelines for services delivered under incubation phase ............................ 44
List of Figures
Figure 1: Workshop structure Chart. .................................................................................... 18
Figure 2: Outputs of workshop. .......................................................................................... 20
Figure 3: Process Summary Chart ........................................................................................ 21
Figure 4: Process Summary: First Challenge ........................................................................... 22
Figure 5: Process Summary: Second Challenge ........................................................................ 25
Figure 6: Process Summary: Third Challenge........................................................................... 28

Revision History
Revision Date Author Organization Description
0.1 09/09/2014 Jordi Lopez
Marta Molero
KIC SE Initial draft
1.0 30/09/2014 Jordi Lopez
Marta Molero
KIC SE Final Version
Statement of originality:
This deliverable contains original unpublished work except where clearly indicated otherwise.
Acknowledgement of previously published material and of the work of others has been made
through appropriate citation, quotation or both.

Executive Summary
KIC InnoEnergy and R&D Maroc are the leaders of the tasks to be done within the scope of the WP5. Support
to Business Creation under the Magrhenov project.
The expertise, experience and know-how that KIC InnoEnergy has developed in their years of operations in
business creation, innovation ecosystems and in the entrepreneurship landscape in Europe, is meant to
provide the valuable knowledge and expertise for the development of this Work Package.
The deliverable 5.1 of WP 5, “Support to Business Creation” aimed to create a Tested Service Package for
entrepreneurs to be implemented within the Maghreb regions participating in the Maghrenov projects:
Morocco and Tunisia. KIC InnoEnergy is the leading partner for the developing this deliverable due to its
experience in developing and delivering business creation services in different countries around Europe.
Prior to define a Service package for entrepreneurs in the region of participating partners of Maghrenov
project (the EU, Morocco and Tunisia from Maghreb area), it was needed an overview and understanding of
the current status of entrepreneurship ecosystem in Maghreb area. That exploratory analysis has allowed
identifying the main challenges in business creation in the entrepreneurship ecosystem of both Morocco and
Tunisia, the both Maghreb countries involved in the project. Although both countries have some
differences, the level of maturity in business creation is still very low, and both countries face the similar
challenges:
1. Professionalism of supporting services for BC: There are few business Incubators in the country
(the existing ones are linked by universities). Furthermore there are not structured services of
Business Creation for entrepreneurs.
2. Identification and selection of good ideas: There are not structured mechanisms for scouting and
selecting ideas from students and entrepreneurs in the region.
3. Profile of entrepreneurs: Most of the entrepreneurs of the region do not have the necessary
experience to start their businesses; furthermore entrepreneurs lack of business backgrounds or
specific technical formation and motivation for starting up their own company
Having identified the main challenges KIC InnoEnergy has brought its expertise and knowledge on business
creation to design, jointly with Moroccan and Tunisian partners, an adapted service package for
entrepreneurs, based on tested services delivered by KIC InnoEnergy through its service offering (the
Highway®) and the characteristics and resources of Moroccan and Tunisian entrepreneurship ecosystem.
In order to define the service package, the above mentioned challenges were fit in the business creation
process from the generation of the idea, its development and incubation till it successfully reaches the
market:
1. Profile of entrepreneurs: This affects in the generation of the ideas as the more
knowledgeable is the entrepreneur the better ideas could come out with, there is also affecting

in later stages of the process as for instance when they will need to team up with experts in
specific topics such as sales, finance or management.
2. Identification and selection of good ideas: will fit within the identification of ideas and the
selection of them
3. Professionalism of supporting services for BC: This is directly linked with the services offered
and the infrastructure needed for delivering them to supported entrepreneurs
Actions have been defined in order to shape the profile of entrepreneur and to foster the generation of
ideas as well as different ways to identify and select ideas in order to complement the main objective of
this deliverable: a service package for entrepreneurs. The main services that can be provided to
entrepreneurs start with a selection of business ideas that will enter into a three steps process: a) ideation,
where entrepreneurs will develop their immature ideas and business models, b) an assessment were a
committee will evaluate the business idea and decide whether there is an opportunity behind that business
idea which is worth to continue support or not, and c) the incubation stage, where entrepreneurs receive
further support to build their company and launch their ideas to the market.
Ideation Assessment of the
opportunity
Incubation
! Office space, IT services
! Initial training on: innovation and
business creation and IP Rights
! Coaching
! Design of the business model with
emphasis in: the market
addressed the definition of the
value proposition, the revenue
streams and the potential costs.
! Market opportunity
behind
! Technology feasibility
and innovativeness of
the business idea
! Economic viability
! Team of entrepreneurs
! Mentoring
! Customer discovery
! Business model validation
! Technology development support:
prototyping / PoC
! IP right support
! Specific trainings
! Team creation
! Legal advice
! Business plan development
! Access to financial resources
! Networking for commercialization
Table 1: Supporting services through the 3-steps approach
The Service Package for entrepreneurs developed and explained under this deliverable is adapted to the
characteristics of the entrepreneurship ecosystems of the regions participating in the Maghrenov project
and is aimed to solve some of the main challenges that Tunisia and Morocco are facing in business creation.
In order to implement them, it was seen that the best way to do it was to take advantage of the existing
mechanisms for supporting business creation. Incubators linked to universities have been identified as the
best vehicle in order to deliver the services defined. However those already few existing incubators would
need to extend their services and adapt their infrastructure and strategy to be able to deliver the services
defined under this deliverable.

The services and actions defined here can be applied to both, Morocco and Tunisian countries, as they both
have similarities in the resources and business creation infrastructure and also share the same challenges.

1 Introduction
1.1 The Context and Objectives
Maghreb countries such as Morocco and Tunisia, suffer from a lack of infrastructure in the support of
business creation in their respective countries. The mechanisms are limited and the services provided from
public incubators are scarce. Despite all of the difficulties, there is willingness within the governments to
foster and promoting innovation by launching different initiatives in the recent years and new ones as well
as new mechanisms are expected to come shortly. However there is still long way to go in order to reach a
desirable degree of development of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in both countries.
The Working package 5 “Support to Business Creation” of the Maghrenov project done under the scope of
this deliverable aims to contribute to the development of the business creation support in Tunisia in
Morocco. Within this scope this deliverable 5.1. “Tested Service Package for entrepreneurs” defines a
range of services and actions to support and enhance the delivery of Business Creation services in the
Maghreb regions of Morocco and Tunisia.
Rather than presenting a future ideal scenario, the document wants to present concrete and doable
measures and mechanisms, which can serve as a starting point for the development of the entrepreneurship
ecosystem in the different regions of the Maghreb. Therefore, the present deliverable includes the most
suitable Service Package for entrepreneurs considering the situation and characteristics of the Maghreb
countries participating in the MAGHRENOV project (Morocco and Tunisia) as well as the needs/challenges of
the entrepreneurship ecosystem identified. In addition an implementation plan is included to show how the
services could be delivered and adapted to the characteristics of the regions. It also includes the resources
that would be needed for a successful implementation taking into consideration the level of involvement of
the different actors in the entrepreneurship ecosystem.
1.2 The Structure
Prior to define a Service package for entrepreneurs in the region of Maghreb participating partners of
Maghrenov project, Morocco and Tunisia, it was needed to have an overview and better understand the
current status of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in those regions. For that purpose an exploratory analysis
was carried which consisted in different in interviews to the key actors in the entrepreneurship ecosystem
and the analysis of secondary data on different initiatives to foster and support innovation and
entrepreneurship in Morocco and Tunisia. That analysis allowed identifying the main challenges in business
creation in the entrepreneurship ecosystem of both Maghreb countries involved in the project. Afterwards a
workshop was run with representatives of the main partners involved in the working package, in order to
verify the insights gathered in the interviews and the secondary data analyzed. Then the participants
prioritize the main challenges identified, establishing the baseline for defining the service package for
entrepreneurs. The main outcomes are presented in section 2 of this deliverable.

Section 3, 4 and 5 present different actions to address the different challenges identified. The core of the
delivery is the section 5 where an adapted Service Package is described. The actions and services described
in those sections are based on a previous analysis done by KIC InnoEnergy on what elements of KIC
InnoEnergy Highway®, the service offering of KIC InnoEnergy, and from other mechanisms and approaches
in business creation in the European entrepreneurship landscape. They are also consensuated and validated
with the main partners of Morocco and Tunisia participating in order to assure a correct adaptation to the
characteristics of the entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Those sections follow the same structure: a description of the actions and description proposed and the
way they can be implemented and who can run or deliver the services.
Finally the document presents in section 6, the conclusions that came out of the work done in the
development of the present deliverable.

2 Challenges in the Maghreb Entrepreneurship
Ecosystem
2.1 Introduction
Before defining any kind of business creation services, it was needed to understand the development
degree of the countries’ entrepreneurship ecosystems participating in the Maghrenov project: Morocco and
Tunisia. KIC InnoEnergy and R&D Morocco carried out an exploratory analysis of the entrepreneurship
ecosystems in Morocco and Tunisia with the support of the representatives of the Cluster des Energies
Renouvelables de Tunisie. That analysis allowed also identifying the main common challenges faced in
business creation in Morocco and Tunisia, which could be addressed by the service package for
entrepreneurs.
The approach followed in this exploratory analysis has consisted in:
a) A series of interviews with key actors and experts in the entrepreneurship ecosystems to gather
first hand insights on their role and the level of the maturity of business creation services available
in the countries. This part was complemented with the analysis of secondary data on the different
initiatives to foster innovation and entrepreneurship in the Tunisian and Moroccan entrepreneurship
ecosystems
b) A workshop for establishing a common understanding and identifying the main challenges to be
addressed and prioritize in the entrepreneurship ecosystems of Morocco and Tunisa (as the main
countries involved in the Maghrenov project)
2.2 Main Insights from Actors of the Entrepreneurship
Ecosystem
Actors of the entrepreneurship ecosystem interviewed* in Casablanca were:
• SAHAM Fondation, a VC Fund (Morocco)
• OMPIC, Moroccan Patent Office (Morocco)
• CE3M, Technology Cluster (Morocco)
• Hassan II University – Casablanca (Morocco)
• Cluster des Energies Renouvelables de Tunisie (Tunisia)

*These interviews, although they represent a small sample, are enough to build an overall overview of the
status of the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem.
2.2.1 SAHAM Fondation.
The first stakeholder interviewed was a Venture Capitalist; Mr. Khalil Azzouzi,
Derecteur Général of the SAHAM Fondation represented the SAHAM Fondation
during the meeting.
Info about the stakeholder:
• The SAHAM Fondation is one of two main financial actors in Morocco although the size of the fund is
tiny.
• The SAHAM Fondation belongs to the SAHAM Group that operates in more than 20 countries.
• The foundation invests in different sectors such as health, pharmaceutical, energy, etc.
• They are also supporting ventures through Sherpa Finance: 300 projects analyzed, 50 projects
accompanied through Sherpa and 5 investments in Morocco.
• The average of their investment is 300k€ per company in first round.
Main insights from the interview:
• The deal flow of entrepreneurs of the SAHAM Fondation is generated by personal contacts.
• The SAHAM Fondation itself supports the development of the ventures, instead of creating an
independent institution such as a business incubator. They dedicate fifty-three hours per ventures
on average which results in a very time consuming activity.
• There is a lack of professional and well established mentorship program: Coaches/mentors are
really important, their experience and network of contacts are necessary to succeed.
• Entrepreneurs lack of business backgrounds and are not really open to team up with management
profiles.
• The financial sector in the entrepreneurship ecosystem of the region is weak:
o There are just a few actors: no foreign investors and the Business Angels association are not
active.
o No government policies or financial incentives which favor entrepreneurship or business
creation: no taxes deductions neither for star-ups neither for investors, no subsidies…

Challenges from their perspective:
• It is necessary to make the country attractive for foreign investors by launching new policies that
incentivize business creation.
• It is necessary to find professional coaches and mentors that bring balance to the entrepreneurs´
teams.
• Entrepreneurs need to change their mentality and accept that they cannot run their companies
alone.
2.2.2 CE3M: Association de Cluster Electronique, Mecatronique et Mecanique du
Maroc.
The second stakeholder interviewed was a specialized Cluster in electronics,
mechatronics and mechanics. The representative of the cluster in the meeting
was Nourdine Bouyaakoub, Directeur Général of the cluster.
• The cluster is operating since 2010.
• The CE3M cluster is one of the ten clusters created in Morocco as part of Government initiative to
foster innovation.
• The cluster is composed by fifty companies and five universities.
• CE3M basically supports the creation of project consortiums among its members in order to access
public funding and provide trainings to its members.
• In total the cluster has invested in thirty collaborative projects (1.4M Euro budgeted) and has
created three start-ups.
• The budget that the cluster receives from the government is 200k for infrastructure and
management of the cluster.
• The different clusters of the region receive support from the Government. Every year they have a
revision of objectives and every three years an audit is carried in order to do a follow up of their
achievements.
• The cluster is in charge of managing relationships among the different partners.

• There are some incubators linked to universities but without facilities. The support is given by the
members of the cluster. Other places are exist (peppinier) where start-ups can rent an office space
a good rates.
• They are using funds from the European Bank for Reconstruction and development to finance
coaches for start-ups within the cluster.
• From their perspective the problem in business creation is basically that the entrepreneurs only
continue if they have money.
• There is not public mechanism and structured process /programs to help start-ups. Support during
the prototype phase is missing.
• Mechanisms to support the commercialization of ideas.
2.2.3 OMPIC
The third stakeholder interviewed was the patent office, OMPIC. Ilham Bennani. Chef
departement Innovation Technologique and Nur-Eddine Boukharouaaa. Chef de Service
Valorisation et Proomotion de l’Innovation acted as representatives in the meeting.
• They promote the use of patent systems in universities and SMEs with the final aim of
supporting and enhancing innovation.
• Since 2010 they have structured the IP awareness by providing trainings on patent systems to
universities (researchers).
• Universities are the owners of the patents.
• There is a broad lack of knowledge on IP rights among the researches and local companies.
• Research and industry are not really linked; industry does not invest in R&D.
• Not many patents are commercialized because of the lack of funds.
• There are no Technology Transfer Offices as a such.
• Researchers don’t want share their ideas.

• Since they launched their IP awareness initiatives, there have been 315 patents applications in
Morocco. 140 applications coming from Universities, 30-40 applications from SMEs and big
companies and the rest by individuals.
• There is an initiative to foster the patents system: They have created the TISC, Technology and
Innovation Support Center, that helps people to use the patent system.
• Just 4 or 5 out of 14 public universities have policies on IP.
• Lack of awareness on the importance of IP in business creation.
• Lack of mechanisms for commercialization of the research (e.g. financial resources, technology
transfer offices).
• Researches are not keen to team up and share their ideas to commercialize them.
2.2.4 UNIVERSITY HASSAN II - CASABLANCA
The fourth stakeholder interviewed was a university. Mohamed Tahiri.
Responsable de la Chaire de l’Innovation represented the new Hassan II-
Casablanca University, result of the merge of the Hassan II and Casablanca
Universities.
• Established on 5 September 1975.
• In a processes of merging with another university.
• The future university will count with 9000 students.
• 24 patents in 2013 compared with 2 in 2010.
• They involve 3 different actors to help start-ups: Universities, banks, and the OCP group.
• They train students and help entrepreneurs in prototyping.
• They have launched an initiative to find innovative ideas. The ideas selected receive training
during one month (technical, business planning and coaching). Afterwards they work in their
projects during 3 months and they enter into a competition were 6 projects are awarded and
supported by the incubator.
• University is collaborating with other European and Arabic universities.

• They have launched one week training for PhD programs (in their second year) from different
countries where students receive courses on management and innovation.
• Professors at university are reluctant to do research (they are not obliged).
• The higher educational system.
• Difficult access to higher education due to languages restrictions: Higher education is delivered
in French.
• It is not easy to attract investors to the ecosystem.
• High analphabetism among the companies’ owners.
2.2.5 RENEWABLE ENERGIES CLUSTER OF TUNISIA.
The last stakeholder interviewed was the Renewable Energies Clusters of
Tunisia/ Cluster des Energies Renouvelables de Tunisie represented by Ahmed
Ernez. President of the Tunisian Renewable Energies Cluster, Also Director of
a Solar company BSI.
• It gathers actors in Renewable Energy in Tunisia
• The government fosters entrepreneurship by releasing entrepreneurs of paying taxes during the
10 first years of the company and by giving 25% of subsidies to start companies.
• Tunisia ecosystems seems very similar in terms of business creation:
• Low investments in research in private and public sector.
• Weak or mechanisms for supporting business creation.
• Patent Office exists for more than 25 years.
• Le Bureau de Transfert de Technologie du Centre de Recherhces et des Technologies de
l'Energie (BuTT-CRTEn) was created in 2012 (http://www.crten.rnrt.tn/present_butt.php)
• It does not exist communication between universities and industry. The only communication
channels are personal networks of contacts.
• Financing the commercialization.

2.3 Identification and Prioritization of Main Challenges in
Business Creation
2.3.1 The Process
With the objective of identifying and prioritizing the different challenges in the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
of the regions involved in the Maghrenov project a workshop was organized in Casablanca.
The KIC InnoEnergy Business Creation Services were shared with the different participants in the workshop
in order to allow participants to have a deep understanding of KIC InnoEnergy business creation offering, as
well as the tools and mechanisms implemented to foster and support business creation. This knowledge
sharing was aimed to identify common challenges experienced by KIC InnoEnergy and how KIC IE has
addressed them so the participants could make the linkage with the situation on their local ecosystems.
Afterwards a working session was organized in order to identify the different problems that are hindering
the development of an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in the region, based on their knowledge in the
Entrepreneurship Ecosystem and the insights gathered during the interviews with the actors of the
ecosystem.
These ideas, posted by the attendees, were organized following the Innovation Value Chain: From Idea
Generation to Market Commercialization.
Figure 1: Workshop structure Chart.
Then the ideas were clustered by challenges; to conclude these challenges areas were prioritized and three
of them were selected in order to develop an Action plan to address them.

2.3.2 Main issues affecting the development of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in
Morocco and Tunisia
The different challenges that came out during the brainstorming session were grouped in eight main areas
that are detailed below:
0. Academia lacks of market orientation: Professors coming from technical universities lack of
business backgrounds, hindering the possibility of commercialization of their research.
1. Cultural issue: The culture of the country is not very entrepreneurial. Young people prefer to
have a secure job in a public institution or a company rather to start their own business.
2. Profile of entrepreneurs: Most of the entrepreneurs of the region do not have the necessary
experience to start their businesses; furthermore entrepreneurs lack of business backgrounds or
specific technical formation and motivation for starting up their own company
3. Professionalism of supporting services for BC: There are few business Incubators in the country
(the existing ones are linked by universities). Furthermore there are not structured services of
Business Creation for entrepreneurs.
4. Financing mechanism scarcity: There are very few private investors and not very active.
Moreover, the public funding resources are scarce.
5. Industry involvement is low in BC: The Moroccan Industry is not powerful enough to face
investments in R&D. Research and development are not considered a priority so that companies do
not invest resources on it.
6. Regulation doesn´t favor entrepreneurship: Some governments, such as the Moroccan, do not
foster entrepreneurship for example by giving subsidies or tax reductions to entrepreneurs when
starting their businesses or incentives for investors.
7. Identification and selection of good ideas: There are not structured mechanisms for scouting and
selecting ideas from students and entrepreneurs in the region.

Figure 2: Outputs of workshop.
2.3.3 Prioritizing challenges
After clustering the different inputs from the participants, the participants selected the most relevant and
urgent topics to be addressed, with the criteria of relevance and feasibility of implementation in a short-
medium period of time. It was agreed by the participants to focus just in three challenges in order to be
able to address them efficiently and ensuring their implementation
The main challenges prioritize to start working which were agreed are:
1. Professionalism of supporting services for BC. It will be necessary to develop a structured and
professional business creation package of services, designed based on the specific needs in the
Maghreb Region. Those services would need also a support of an infrastructure in place in order
to deliver them.
2. Identification and selection of good ideas. It will be necessary to design and organize the
process of capturing and selecting ideas.
3. Profile of entrepreneurs. In order to come up with good business ideas and increase the
chances of success in the creation of start-ups, the entrepreneurs should have a broader
knowledge and a market orientation, but also the capacity and wiliness to team up with others
to successfully run their companies
Although other challenges are important/relevant too, they would require too long time to be solved; or
maybe the possible actions to be taken will not have a high impact.

2.3.4 Outcomes from the exploratory analysis
There are several important challenges to be faced in order to create an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in the
Maghreb Region, as it was seen in during the workshop held. Furthermore there are some challenges that
are too complicated to be changed, that requires of too long time or are need the actions from the
government, such as the “cultural issue” or the “restrictive government policies”.
However, the selected challenges can have a big repercussion on the development of the Entrepreneurial
Ecosystem, such modeling and sculpting the profile of entrepreneurs; making them more prepared and
more attractive for investor, the different ways to attract and identify new business ideas, and what and
how services can be delivered.
Previous experiences and some good practices from KIC InnoEnergy can be adapted or taken as a reference
for developing the Action Plan for deploying the service package for entrepreneurs.
There is a clear spirit of change present in all the actors interviewed; they want to take action and start
making changes to make the entrepreneurial ecosystem flourish.
By linking the three main challenges within a general process of business creation depicted below, we can
find the following relationships between the main stated in section 2.3.3, and where in the process can be
addressed:
Figure 3: Process Summary Chart
1. Profile of entrepreneurs: This affects in the generation of the ideas as the more knowledgable
is the entrepreneur the better ideas could come out with, there is also affecting in later stages
of the process as for instance when they will need to team up with experts in specific topics
such as sales, finance or management.
2. Identification and selection of good ideas: will fit within the identification of ideas and the
selection of them
3. Professionalism of supporting services for BC: This is directly linked with the services offered
and the infrastructure needed for delivering them to supported entrepreneurs

3 Challenge 1: Development of Potential
Entrepreneurs
3.1 Introduction
The profile of the entrepreneur is one of the main issues that the actors in the ecosystem pointed out
during the interviews and discussions carried out to identified the main challenges faced within the
Maghrenov regions. The entrepreneurs are usually people with not very strong technical knowledge in some
cases. They also lack of business and management knowledge and usually they are reluctant to share their
ideas with others which makes difficult to coach them and team up with external people. Those are issues
more related with the culture and therefore they are difficult to assess. There is also a problem when it
comes to commitment and wiliness to bring their idea to the market as a big number of them usually work
in their ideas or projects meanwhile they have financial resources to work on them. Also a cultural issue
comes when talking about entrepreneurship that was pointed out by different experts in entrepreneurship
ecosystem of Morocco and Tunisia; the Moroccan and Tunisian people seems to be risk adverse. Young
people prefer a save position in a public administration or big companies rather than start their own
business with plenty of uncertainty.
Figure 4: Process Summary: First Challenge
Cultural issues are difficult to address from the business creation side therefore it will be out of the scope
of this study as it will required the implication of the different institutions from different levels. However
others issues concerning lack of business knowledge and relationship skills as well as motivation for
instance, can be addressed by different means presented here. The different actors in the
entrepreneurship ecosystem like universities or incubators should have a relevant role, through different
services delivered from the institutions (which are further developed later on in this report)
The potential entrepreneurs that could benefit from those trainings are:
• Professors
• Researches
• Students

• Individuals not linked to any of above groups
3.2 Trainings
Education is a key success factor to create potential entrepreneurs. We are not just talking about providing
potential entrepreneurs with technical knowledge to invent new things or come up with disruptive
innovations but also complementary knowledge allow a change in their mindset. Education can open their
mind and cause the curiosity that will led them to create and develop new innovations.
Different topics can be addressed through such trainings:
• Innovation
• Business creation
• Finance for entrepreneurs
• IP Rights
3.3 Other Actions to Foster Entrepreneurship
Beyond training other ways to help in the change in the mindset of potential entrepreneurs could be:
• Promote the successful stories to motivate students and researchers and other potential
entrepreneurs to start their own business. The successful entrepreneurs will explain their
stories and experience. This type of stories has been proven to be an efficient way to motivate
potential entrepreneur thanks to the effect of “if he/she could do it, I can also do it”.
• Tunisia and Morocco count with a high level skilled emigrants spread around the world whose
experience would be highly valuable (Moroccan Diaspora, Global Innovation Index report 2014)
for potential entrepreneurs. Involving them in conferences, or seminars where they can share
their experiences can also help in fostering entrepreneurship
As part of the business creation services, the incubators could contribute to change the profile of the
entrepreneur and solve some of the above-mentioned issues by providing entrepreneurs with the following
services that will be described further on in this report:
• Mentoring.
• Team building.
• Development of soft skills: Human resources management, presentation and communication
skills, leadership, etc…
Also the dissemination of the results of the incubators and success stories can encourage people to launch
their own businesses.

3.4 Actions
There are some already existing initiatives like the Training for PhD students opened to international
students at Hassan II University, which can be replicated in Tunisia and fostered by Universities in
collaboration with existing research centers, and other actors of the entrepreneurship ecosystem such as
the incubators.
Besides that, other actions to disseminate the knowledge and success stories can be considered:
Actions Actors
Specific trainings
• Universities
• Business Schools
• Specialized consultants
Courses that can be introduced at
universities.
• Universities
• Patent Agencies
• Business Schools
Free seminars
• Incubators
• Clusters
• Private investors
• Successful entrepreneurs
• Start-ups
• Consultants
Conferences
• Incubators
• Clusters
• Private investors
• Successful entrepreneurs
• Start-ups
• Consultants
Free online courses (MOOCS)
• Develop by governmental institutions in
collaboration with actors of the entrepreneurship
ecosystems
Promotion of success stories
• Promotion at Universities
• Incubators
• Research centers
Table 2: Methods for dissemination of Business Creation

4 Challenge 2: Identification and Selection of Good
Ideas
4.1 Introduction
The exploratory analysis done with the partners of Maghrenov project and different actors of the
entrepreneurship ecosystem of Morocco and Tunisia, have shown that although there are some initiatives
done for fostering entrepreneurship and identifying business ideas, there is still room for improvement and
a need to find good ideas with potential to create successful start-ups.
Figure 5: Process Summary: Second Challenge
There are different actions that can be combined in order to identify good ideas, selection and consequent
support from the point of view of business creation support. Considering the perspective of an incubator
that will support entrepreneurs in the journey from ideation till they bring they idea to the market, this
section presents different initiatives and actions, which an actor such an Incubator can be done in order to
attract entrepreneurs, and identified good business ideas.
4.2 Actions for Identifying and Selecting Business Ideas
According to KIC InnoEnergy experience in implementing the Highway and in attracting entrepreneurs, the
identification of ideas needs a proactive approach. Some actions, which have been proven successful at KIC
InnoEnergy, can be adapted and implemented in the Maghreb area:
• Scouting: Direct search of good ideas at universities or research centers.
• Business plans competitions and contests. By establishing competitions the organizers will have
access to high number of cases in a limited period of time. The more attractive the award or
price would be, the more cases they can receive. By sponsorization of those events the business
creation supporting institutions will increase their visibility and will gain also awareness.
• Collaboration agreements with other actors, which can forward cases to incubators.

4.3 Promotional Activities to Attract Business Ideas
Besides initiatives to foster the creation and submission of ideas some marketing actions will be needed in
order to get awareness among entrepreneurs on the services that incubators can offer to support them in
developing their ideas. The following actions will contribute to attract entrepreneurs:
• Advertisement of business creation services offered.
• Presentation of services in conferences about entrepreneurship.
• Open days of the incubators.
• Participation in entrepreneurship fairs.
• Publication of success stories can also attract the interest of others potential entrepreneurs.
• Marketing 2.0 (use of social networks).
4.4 Implementation Plan
Actions How to implement it Who
Actions for identifying and selecting business ideas
Scouting Establish a network of contacts within Universities and
Research Centers that will scout for opportunities. Those
persons will be in charge of searching among the different
departments of the Universities and research centers for
potential technologies that can be brought to the market
Identifying potential students with good ideas and motivate
them to start their own company by presenting them the
business creation services
When it comes to professors a nice initiative is being developed
by University Hassan II from the “Chaire of Innovation”; they
are implementing a DataBase with information on the
professors, their research interest and area of expertise. This
could be a good starting point to identify potential
entrepreneurs coming from Academia
Professors at universities
who can be paid or
rewarded based on the
ideas that are selected by
the incubator for instance
Representatives of
business incubators
Business plans
competitions and
contests
Organization of contest where entrepreneurs will submit their
ideas. The winners selected will received a prize which will
incentive them to present their ideas. There are different
types of competitions; open to all public, close to university
students, about specific challenges proposed where applicants
should present their ideas to solve those challenges or open to
any kind of ideas. It can be also done per specific sector or for
different types of sectors.
Endorse or support already existing initiatives by sponsorization
and participation in the jury of Business plans competitions or
other similar contests for entrepreneurs
There are some existing initiatives that incubators can support
and participate:
The International Start-ups Meeting (ISUM) took place last
weekend at the Tunisian Union of Industry,
‘‘Maghreb Startup Initiative’’, the first model of business plan
competition organized across the Maghreb region.
Manager of the incubator
Incubator’s staff
As jury, different actors
of the entrepreneurship
ecosystem can be
appointed: private
investors, entrepreneurs,
external consultants or
executives from industry

http://fjemaroc.ma/page-5-ExpertProfessional-12-ang-1-
fondationentrepreneur.html
Collaboration
agreements
By collaborating with existing actors of the entrepreneurship
ecosystem (VCs, clusters, patent offices) an incubator can
receive business ideas identified by those actors. At KIC
InnoEnergy those agreements in different regions have proven
to be very valuable mechanism to receive new ideas.
For instance, the VCs are receiving many ideas looking for
funding but many times they are not mature enough or they
lack something to invest in them. Those business ideas can be
forwarded to business incubators for instance so they can
support them and prepare them until they reach the stage
where a private investor could enter in the start-up
Incubator Manager
VCs or BA associations
(e.g. SAHAM in Morocco,
or : Carthage Business
Angel or Tunisian
Association for Capital
Investors (ATIC)
Clusters like CE3M in
Morocco or Cluter Energie
Tunisie in Tunisa
Promotional activities to attract business ideas
Advertisement and
promotion materials
Advertisement could be a good option to be considered in order
to promote the business creation offering.
Also promotional materials (leaflets= would be needed in order
to spread them around students community, professors or other
potential entrepreneurs
A website is also a powerful communication tool in order to
explain the support entrepreneurs can get from the incubator.
But also it could be use as an entry point, by allowing the
submission of business ideas through an on-line form
Incubator’s staff
Local design agency
Web developers
Conferences This referrers to the participation in existing conferences by
presenting the business creation services. The aim would be to
reach a broad audience of potential entrepreneurs that could
present the business ideas. Conferences related to research
topics, innovation, business, etc. can be of potential interest
In order to do so the incubator’s staff would need to contact
with the organizers in order to get an slot for presenting the
business creation services
Incubator’s staff
Open days of the
incubators
Taking advantage of their links with Universities, business
incubators could organize visits to the incubators so the
students of different programmes of the University can meet
entrepreneurs and see by firsthand how the services are
provided.
Incubator
University
Participation in
entrepreneurship
fairs
Participation in fairs where the incubators can promote their
business creation services with promotional materials or by
participating in round tables
An example of annual event done to foster entrepreneurship is
the Global Entrepreneurship week
Web developers
Publication of success
stories
Publishing success stories is a good way to demonstrate the
benefits and the value added that entrepreneurs can receive
within the Business incubator. In such a way the example of
incubatees talking about their experience could be an
attraction factor for other potential entrepreneurs
Incubator’s staff and
supported entrepreneurs
Marketing 2.0 (use of
social networks)
The presence in social media will help to reach young
entrepreneurs could be consider as an option to gain awareness
and to promote business creation services. Specially because
social networks such, facebook or twitter are very popular
among young people, which is a big part of the total population
in Maghreb countries
Anyway it is highly recommended to keep this option for when
the business creation services are consolidated and implement
it after a conscious communication and marketing plan.
Incubator
Table 3: Guidelines for implementing the actions to identify and attract business ideas

5 Challenge 3: Business Creation Services. The
Support of Ideas and Delivery of Services: Service
Package for Entrepreneurs.
5.1 Introduction
The support of business creation should help entrepreneurs to develop and bring their ideas to the market.
The supporting services should be market oriented, and therefore the support should be given to those
most promising ideas.
Figure 6: Process Summary: Third Challenge
5.2 Selection of Ideas
Before starting any kind of support the Incubator should select the most promising ideas. An incubator
should receive many ideas and therefore this should be quick analysis of the idea where the incubator will
decide whether to start supporting the idea or not.
The selection criteria suggested at this stage to be implemented are:
1. Innovativeness of the idea
2. Energy sector relation (This point is adapted to the Maghrenov scope - Renewable energies)
3. Market potential
4. Time to market < 3 years
This screening should allow the incubator to discard those business ideas which doesn’t fit in the scope of
the Business Incubator. For instance in the case of KIC InnoEnergy at this stage the business ideas which are
not related to energy are discarded.

5.3 Description of Services
5.3.1 Approach
According to the experience of KIC InnoEnergy in their implementation of its Services offering to
entrepreneurs, the Highway®, as well as other existing mechanisms and models for business creation and
considering the level of development and maturity of Moroccan and Tunisian business creation support
offering, it has been concluded that the best way to deliver the services would be to structure it in three
main phases:
1. Ideation. According to the insights gathered and the expert’s conclusions of the profile of
entrepreneurs received and the level of maturity that the business ideas are found at this
stage, it would be necessary some support for the development of the business idea before
delivering additional services. This would also reduce the risk of supporting institutions such as
incubators about delivering support and spending further resources in not well developed ideas.
2. Assessment of the opportunity. Before deciding whether or not continuing supporting the
venture/entrepreneurs, the supporting institution which is delivering the services, needs to see
if there is an opportunity behind such an idea and if it is worth to support it or not.
3. Incubation. At this stage is when the big chunk of services is provided. Those services are
more known but its implementation and delivery would also be adapted to the characteristics
of both countries: Morocco and Tunisia
The following tables present the different services that entrepreneurs will have access at every
stage in the process of business creation delivery.
Ideation Assessment of the
opportunity
Incubation
! Office space, IT services
! Initial training on: innovation and
business creation and IP Rights
! Coaching
! Design of the business model with
emphasis in: the market
addressed the definition of the
value proposition, the revenue
streams and the potential costs.
! Market opportunity
behind
! Technology feasibility
and innovativeness of
the business idea
! Economic viability
! Team of entrepreneurs
! Mentoring
! Customer discovery
! Business model validation
! Technology development support:
prototyping / PoC
! IP right support
! Specific trainings
! Team creation
! Legal advice
! Business plan development
! Access to financial resources
! Networking for commercialization
Table 4: List of services and activities within the business creation support

5.3.2 Ideation
Once the entrepreneurs have passed the first filter, the incubator will allocate the needed resources in
order to actively help them to develop and build on their ideas, and create an appropriate business model.
At this stage the foreseen services that the incubator will offer are:
• Office space, IT services: The incubators will have available office space to the disposal of the
selected entrepreneurs where the services will be delivered and were the entrepreneurs could work
on their projects. Office space will represent multiple advantages to entrepreneurs wishing to
simplify their physical infrastructure while taking advantage of the savings of rents. Ventures will
have access to open spaces or private offices depending of the level of maturity of the venture.
Besides the office space the following complementary services will be at the disposal of the
entrepreneur in the incubator’s facilities:
o Reception Service and intercom access.
o Office equipment access, shared workstations
o Meeting rooms.
o Printer and scanner services.
o IT services and high speed connection to Internet.
• Workshops in innovation, business creation and IP rights: this consists in the delivery of trainings
to selected entrepreneurs to provide them with the basic knowledge and the tools and frameworks
to develop their business ideas with special emphasis in market orientation and definition of the
business model.
• Coaching: During this phase, the entrepreneur will receive the support of a coach or staff from the
incubator who will be following closely and advising the entrepreneur in the ideation process.
• Business model design: The entrepreneur will receive either from the coach or from the staff of
the incubator assistance in the development of business model, which will be the main outcome of
this phase. Special focus will be done in: the market addressed, the definition of the value
proposition, the revenue streams and the potential costs (creation of value and appropriation of
the value).
5.3.3 Assessment of the Opportunity
After the ideation, the entrepreneurs will pitch their ideas in front of a committee that will decide
whether continue supporting the venture or not. The incubator will assess the different cases and just
support those most promising considering the following criteria:
1. Market opportunity behind the business idea.
2. Technology feasibility.
3. Economic viability.

4. Team of entrepreneurs.
5. Further needs.
This assessment will allow the Incubator to stop supporting those ideas/ventures that are not so well
developed or that after the ideation process have reveal that there is no such a market opportunity or that
the business model is not clear.
5.3.4 Incubation
Once the entrepreneurs have passed the assessment, they will have access to a bunch of services covering
for dimensions: Technology, Market, People and Finance. The services that each ventures will received
could vary depending of the needs of the entrepreneurs. The Incubator Manager and the coach assigned will
assess the needs of the entrepreneurs and will establish the priorities and the different objectives that the
ventures should achieve, and based on that the most appropriate services for the venture/entrepreneurs.
The following list of services suggested has been created considering the main needs of the entrepreneurs
in the regions and the experience of KIC Innoenergy in the supporting the business creation. Therefore this
list includes an adaptation of the main key services which have been proven to be critical for business
creation based.
The list services that Business Incubator could provide would be:
• Mentoring: When a venture starts passes the assessment committee a mentor will be assigned by
the Incubator to the entrepreneur's team. These mentors bring will be highly involve with the
entrepreneurs bringing their knowledge and expertise but also their network of contacts that can
help entrepreneurs in all the process to bring their idea to the market.
• Technology development support: Depending on the stage of maturity of the venture they would
need to build a prototype or Proof of Concept to test, adapt or validate the technology and to show
the benefits of the solution developed.
• Business model development: It refers to the development of the strategy of the venture
considering the market analysis, the customer’s feedback on their solution. This means establishing
how they are going to create and deliver and appropriate/capture value (e.g. value proposition,
market segments addressed, customer relationship, key resources, partnerships, revenue streams,
cost structure, distribution channels, etc…)
• IP right support: The incubator will be supporting the venture in protecting its business or
technology by advising on the different possibilities/strategies and by helping entrepreneurs in the
freedom to operate analysis and in the patent application process.
• Specific trainings: This service’s aim is to support provide the capabilities and skills needed by
entrepreneurs through specific training and workshops. The incubator will organize different
specialized type of workshops depending on the needs and desired competences to develop. Some
examples could be:
• Pitching: How to pitch in front of investors

• Finance: Financial issues such as financial statement or cost management
• Marketing & sales workshops: Courses on sales and marketing and in growth strategies.
• Team creation: One of the main reasons of failure of entrepreneurs is that the entrepreneur is not
able to find an appropriate complementary team for the venture. The incubator will identify
strengths and weaknesses of the entrepreneurs through team assessments and through the
continuous evaluation process. Results from those assessments will allow the incubator and
entrepreneurs to see which profile(s) can complement the team in order to have the most
appropriate one(s) to successfully bring their ideas to the market.
• Legal advice: Advice to carry out the legal constitution of new ventures addressing different
aspects such as the different types of company/legal entity to establish, steps need to be done,
taxes issues, etc.
• Business plan development: After the definition and validation of the Business Model,
entrepreneurs will elaborate the Business Plan which will allow the new venture to establish its
strategy for the following years and search for financial resources.
• Access to financial resources: This should be a key value from the Incubator. The financing is
scarce in Morocco and Tunisia; therefore the Incubators can play a decisive role in helping
entrepreneurs in finding financial resources, because of their key role in the entrepreneurship
ecosystem. Therefore Incubators will offer services of supporting entrepreneurs to apply for public
funds, connecting entrepreneurs with financial investors (Business angels and VCs) and by endorsing
the ventures when applying for bank loans.
• Networking: The Incubator will organize different networking events where entrepreneurs will be
able to meet investors, potential customers or other successful entrepreneurs.
• Commercialization: This is an essential support for ventures as the exploratory research have been
shown due to the difficulties for commercialization of the results of ventures/research, not just in
Maghreb countries participating in the MAghrenov project, but also at KIC InnoEnergy. Therefore
the Incubator may have a relevant role to solve this issue by providing services for
commercialization to their supported ventures.
5.4 Implementation of the Business Creation Services
5.4.1 Infrastructure
In order to deliver the services for entrepreneurs, it is needed to count with the appropriate infrastructure
that will allow and facilitate the development of the business creation activities and process. The country
lacks Technology transfer offices that could help in commercialization of the knowledge created, and the
presence of business incubators is very limited and no affordable for many entrepreneurs. However, some
universities have incubators which support entrepreneurs to bring their ideas into the market, but in many
cases the services are delivered by third parties. There are also private institutions which offer business

creation services such as BCO, but based on fees. In order to encourage and foster entrepreneurship, some
public subsidized mechanisms should be in place, and the university based incubators can play a relevant
role in democratizing the access to business creation services to entrepreneurs. But as the Ilias Azzizou
stated in his report “Building National Networks Morocoo Incubation and Spin-offs Network (MISN) -Réseau
Maroc Incubation et Essaimage” those incubators should be independently managed and autonomous to
have real impact results.
5.4.1.1 Office Space
In order to allow entrepreneurs Building from zero new infrastructures would be costly and could take long
time to build them. Instead of building from scratch new incubators or technology transfer offices, it has
been seen that is better to start by delivering the services from the already existing business incubators
linked to the Universities for the following reasons:
• Time to life is shorter than building from zero and incubator.
• Proximity to the creation of knowledge.
• Reputation as the image would be linked to the University name.
• Easier access to experts (Technical).
• Infrastructure is already in place.
• Complementary services (news plus those existing ones).
• Easier mobilization.
• Less costs (than building new center).
• Possibility to share facilities (Labs, office space, etc...).
5.4.1.2 Facilities
By facilities we consider all aspect such as internet access, printers, meeting rooms, office materials and so
on. By using existing infrastructure of the Universities and Clusters such as CE3M the deployment, all those
services related to office space and facilities would be available immediately.
5.4.1.3 Organizational structure
A clear organizational structure should be established in order to run the incubator and facilitate the
delivery of services as well as the detection and selection of business ideas.
Full time employees:
• Administrative staff.
• Responsible of the incubator.
• Project managers/coaches which can support directly the entrepreneurs and deliver in some cases
the services.

• Marketing and communication of the Incubator.
INCUBATOR STAFF ROLE DESCRIPTION PROFILE
Manager The Incubator’s Manager will be in charge of
coordinating all the staff and all the activities
within the incubator plus managing all the
resources. He or she would also be in charge
of the financing part.
Ideally he or she should have a technical and
management background. Previous
experience in management and industry is
required and should count with expertise in
entrepreneurship. Important is to be
connected with actors of the
entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Project
Manager/Advisor/coach
This person will be in direct contact with
entrepreneurs and their teams. His/her main
tasks are to support entrepreneurs and to
manage the delivery of the services to the
entrepreneurs during the period of
incubation. They are also involved in the
selection of cases. Depending on their profile
could act as coaches as well.
It is desirable to have complementary
education or experience in the two areas,
management and technical fields with
experience in dealing with entrepreneurs.
If the person in going to provide coaching as
well, he or she should have previous
experience as entrepreneur or expertise in
business management at high level.
Marketing Manager The Marketing manager will be in charge of
organizing and coordinating communication
and events in order to capture as well as the
promotion the services of the incubators, or
networking activities
This person should have an educational
background and previous experience in
marketing.
Administrative This person will be in charge of the invoices,
incubator’s accountancy and all
administrative acting as well as facility
manager of the premises.
Previous experience as administrative should
be required.
Table 5: HHRR Definition
External experts:
Individuals: It includes coaches, and persons who will deliver specific services that would require specific
expertise or know-how in different fields: technical, market, finance, legal and human resources. Those
individuals could be:
a) Executives from industry.
b) Serial Entrepreneurs.
c) Consultants as freelances.
Although the most normal would be to look locally for that people, It should be considered the possibility to
count with emigrants from the countries who are willing to come back or that can come back for a limited
period of time per year (considering that the countries where they live are mainly France, Italy and Spain)
contributing, with their expertise, know-how and experience

The case of Morocco
As an example of the potential of emigrants can be found in the report “Global Innovation Index 2014-The
Human Factor” about the Moroccan Diaspora where it is said that more than 32,000 MLAs (Moroccan Living
abroad) are senior executives or professionals in the private sector and they are mainly researchers,
research and development (R&D) managers, university professors, and business people. This is a huge
potential for the economy of the country and for business creation in the country.
Besides individuals, the Incubator can also subcontract to third parties the competences and resources
that they don’t have. For instance the legal advisor can be done by a law firm or the IP Rights trainings
can be carried out by OMPIC and the patent application by the technological information Centers (TISCs).
In the section about implementation of services it has been identified potential contributors for the
delivery of services.
5.4.1.4 Collaboration in the delivery of the services
In order to provide high-class added value services it is important to have collaboration agreements with
the key players within the entrepreneurship ecosystem. Establishing connections and agreements with
institutions like OMPIC on Morocco or Clusters such as CE3M or Cluster d’energie Tunisia, will allow the
incubator not only count with external parties to deliver the services but having a new source of potential
candidates and possibilities to connect entrepreneurs with potential customers (members of the clusters)
endorsing the value added to entrepreneurs.
Also the European Bank for reconstruction has programs to finance mentoring so it would be worth to
explore collaboration agreements with such institutions as they could provide the financial resources to
fund the services (e.g. mentorship in this case).
5.4.2 Selection of ideas
The Incubator should have available an application form for those entrepreneurs who want to enter in the
Incubator. Such a form will allow the Incubator to know the basic aspects about the business idea
submitted:
• Problem/need to be addressed.
• Solution: explanation of the solution. How the technology works and which is its value
proposition (benefits for potential customers). Also it should be explained here if there is
any patent or potential patent involved
• Market: Which is the market addressable, who are the customer segments? Competitors.
• Financials (if they have done something at the early stage).
Besides the application form the entrepreneurs can provide all supporting documentation they can have on
their business idea: presentation, CVs, business plans, etc… Also it can be considered appropriate to have

physical meetings with the idea owners in order to know the entrepreneurs and to better understand their
business idea and their value proposition.
After analyzing the application form the Incubator could decide:
a) Discard the business idea.
d) Accept it and start the ideation process.
c) Ask for further information or meetings to clarify doubts.
Those tasks can be done by the responsible of the incubator with the support of his/her team (project
managers). The people in charge of the selection should be able to detect if there is a potential
opportunity behind the business idea even if there are not experts in the field or technology. For such cases
where the evaluators have doubts can also forward the application form with the information gathered to
external experts that can give more insights on the technical side.
The selection of the ideas should be run anytime they received an idea in order to give a response to the
entrepreneurs.
5.4.3 Ideation
At this stage on the process and considering that the incubator is located at the Universities, and based on
the experience of the different actors contacted, the most likely is that the idea is in very early stage and
the entrepreneurs will lack of business knowledge and market orientation. Therefore the first thing would
be to provide entrepreneurs with the trainings so they can get the basic knowledge and tools they will
apply to develop their business ideas.
The entrepreneurs will be hosted in the incubator facilities where they will have workspace and eventually
workstation (in case they don’t have enough resources). With those ingredients the entrepreneurs will work
in developing their business idea (ideation process) and will count with the support and supervision of the
incubator’s staff that will coach them during all the process.
This phase is foreseen to last few weeks, but this should be adjusted case by case, depending on the
maturity and the complexity of each case. At the end the outcome of this process would be a business
model. After that the venture will be ready to present they work to an assessment committee which will
decide whether to continue supporting the venture or not.
Workshops can be delivered mainly by coaches or incubator’s staff or by external experts if needed.
5.4.4 Assessment of the opportunity
The business idea documentation will be send to the members of the Assessment committee who will
evaluate the business idea of the entrepreneurs in advance. A presentation will take place where the
entrepreneurs will defend their business idea in front of the committee. After a round of questions and
answers the committee will take the decision on whether to support the business idea or not and under
which conditions. The format of the presentation could differ depending on the case but usually should
content a presentation of the idea, some questions and answers.

The members of the committee should be composed by the responsible of the incubators and could count
with the presence of external experts in the different dimensions. For instance: Business angels (finance),
professors from universities or researchers from R&D centers (technology), representatives from companies
or independent consultants (market).

5.4.5 Services Delivery
Service Delivered How to implement it Who will deliver the services or
contribute in the delivery
Examples of organizations in Morocco and Tunisia who
are already delivering these services
Mentoring When a venture starts passes the assessment
committee a mentor will be assigned by the Incubator
to the entrepreneur's team. The mentoring is provided
through coaching sessions, which are usually physical
meetings, or by other means (telephone, skype) as
needed. Together with the entrepreneurs and the
Incubator Manager they work on the specific planning
of the venture where all the actions, tasks,
commitments and deliverables are planned, and checks
the progress and evolution of the venture. The role of
the mentor is key for the success of the company and
mentorship requires personal implication from the
mentor as at the end is more a relationship between
the entrepreneur and the mentor than a punctual
advice in some issues.t
- Incubator’s staff
- Executives from industry: Through
collaboration with clusters like CE3M in
Morocco or Cluster Energie Tunisie in Tunisia
the incubators can have access to top
executives. Also executives from clusters can
act as coaches.
- Business Angels form local BA associations like
in Morocco
- Emigrants (e.g. Moroccan or Tunisian
Diaspora)
Morocco
Fondation Création d’Entreprises de la Banque Populaire (FCEBP)
Incubateurs au sein des établissements universitaires :
Centre d’Innovation Technologiqque (CIT) de l’École
Mohammedia d’Ingénieurs (EMI) de Rabat ;
Centre d’Incubation et d’Acccueil des Entreprises Innovantes
(CIAEI) de l’École Nationale de
L’Industrie Minérale (ENIM) de Rabat ;
L’Incubateur Universitaire de Mararrakech (INMA) de l’Université
Cadi Ayad de Marrakech ;
Centre Universitaire Doukkkala Incubation (CUDI) de la Faculté
des Sciences d’El Jadidda ;
L’Incubateur Régional Interuniversitaire du Sud (IRIS) de
l’Université Ibn Zohhr d’Agadir ;
L’Incubateur RESIN de l’Institut National des Postes et
Télécommunications (INPT) ;
L’Incubateur Dynamique Est de la Faculté desSciences
Économiques Juridiques et Sociales d’Oujda ;
L’incubateur Marobtikar de l’Université Hassan 1er de Settat ;
L’incubateur de l’Université Al Akhawayn (Al Akhawayn
Incubattor), Ifrrane ;
Pépinière "Maroc Incubation" du Centre National pour la
Recherche Scientifique et Technique (CNRST) ;
Centre Universitaire d'Incubation de Tadla-Azilal (CUITA),
Université Sultan Moulay Slimane, Beni Mellal ;
L’Incubateur Universitaire de l’Université Moulay Ismail de
Meknès
Pépinières :
Technopark de Casablanca,
Technopark de Rabat,
Association Casablanca MOUBADARA (programme d’appui aux
initiatives individuelles)
Association Rabat MOUBADARA
Réseau d’Education à l’Entreprenariat au Maroc « REEM »
Association Marocaine d'Appui à la Promotion de la Petite
Entreprise (AMAPPE)
Association des femmes chefs d’entreprise (Afeme)
Agence nationale pour le développement des énergies

renouvelables et de l’efficacité énergétique (ADREE)
Tunisia
BFPME - La Banque de Financement des PME
University Incubators
RNPE - Le réseau national des pépinières d’entreprises
Technopôle de Borj Cedria
Elgazala Technopark
APII - Agence de promotion de l’Industrie et de l’Innovation
Technology
development support -
prototyping
The Incubators thanks to the agreements and
connections established with the different actors of the
ecosystem would give the possibility to support such
development, by providing access to labs from
universities, companies or research centres. The
incubator could also finance the prototyping up to
certain level or help the entrepreneurs in finding
financial resources (private or public) always under
some requirements or the achievement of milestones.
Another option to be considered is to foster the
collaboration between companies and ventures to co-
develop the proof of concept. In order to support that
the incubator should have a network of contacts with
companies, chambers of commerce or cluster and
organized regular meetings to present the ventures
they are supporting in order to find potential
partnerships between companies and ventures.
- University professors as advisors or by
assessing the development of the technology
- Universities and Research centres by providing
access to Labs for testing venture’s
technologies.
- Experts from industry for advising in the
technology development
- Financial support – e.g. from innovation
initiative of Morocco
- Companies
- Clusters could facilitate the co-development
with companies of the cluster
- Collaborations with Scientific Institutions such
as IMIST (Moroccan Institute of Scientific and
Technology and Innovation), R&D Maroc or RTD
(Réseau de Diffusion de Technologue) in Maroc
Morocco:
The network of technological information centres (TISCs). The
TISC network offers the following services:
Patent information searches
patent mapping and freedom-to-operate search;
Identification of company-specific technical issues and research
topics for universities and research institutions;
Awareness-raising on IP rights, especially patents;
Promotion of the results of research.
MAROBTIKAR
Centre des Jeunes Dirigeants d’entreprises
Les Clusters
Les centres techniques industriels
Tunisia:
Ministère de l’Industrie - Direction Générale de l’Innovation et du
Développement Technologique (DGIDT)
ANPRS - Agence Nationale de Promotion de la Recherche
Scientifique
Cluster of Renewable Energies
Cluster Mécatronic Tunisie
CETIME - Centres Techniques
Business model
development
The development of the business model would be the
starting point. Assumptions made in previous phases
should be validated in terms of market (there is a
market opportunity) and technology (Proof of concept
done in order to assure that the solution is adapted to
customer needs, that the unique value proposition of
the solution can be delivered).
- Mentors
Morocco:
Incubateurs
Regional Investment Center (CRI)
Association Casa et Rabat moubadara
fbpce
Tunisia:
University Incubators

After the validation of the business model with
potential customers, some initial estimation should be
done, indicating the revenues streams (considering
projections of sales) and the cost structure of the new
venture in order to quantify the economics of the new
venture.
ANME – Agence Nationale pour la Maitrise de l’Energie
Elgazala Technopark
IP right support Ideally an IP advisor will help the entrepreneur´s team
through all the process of application.
IP advisor or National Patent Office/Agency
e.g. OMPIC for Morocco
Morocco:
Office Marocain de la Propriété Industrielle et Commerciale
(OMPIC)
The Network of Technological information centres (TISCs).
Tunisia:
INNORPI – Institut National de la Normalisation et de la Propriété
Intellectuelle
Specific trainings The incubator will prepare usually in collaboration with
third parties (suppliers of trainings) trainings for
incubates.
- Business Schools
- Specialized companies:
- Experts (freelance)
Morocco:
R&D Maroc
AFEM: Association des femmes chefs d’entreprise
Incubateurs
Les cités de l’innovation
Les structures de valorisation des résultats de la recherche
Réseau Entreprendre Maroc
Les clusters
aderee
Réseau d’Education à l’Entreprenariat au Maroc « REEM »
Tunisia :
CSNER - Chambre Syndicale Nationale des Energies Renouvelables
ATFP - Agence Tunisienne de Formation Professionnelle
Team creation During the ideation phase some human capital needs to
be identified. Under this service, the Incubator will
take use of its broad network of contacts in order to
find the most appropriated profile to complement the
Exploiting the personal and professional
networks of
Morocco:
les Clusters
Réseau Maroc Incubation et Essaimage (RMIE)
Association Marocaine des Industries Solaires et Eolienne
(AMISOLE)

team of entrepreneurs. This would be agreed with the
coach and the Incubator’s manager. This is one of the
critical success factors for the success of the venture,
therefore if the entrepreneur is not willing to share or
even leave the management of the venture to a third,
the Incubator should consider seriously to stop
supporting the venture until the team issue is solved
- Local agencies for supporting innovation
- Mentors
- Clusters
- Investors e.g. SAHAM (Morocco)
Les cités de l’innovation
Tunisia:
Legal advice This service can done in collaboration with law firms or
by subcontracting to third parties who will assess which
legal form is the best for constituting legally the
company and what are the legal issues regarding
taxation for instance.
- Local legal experts
Morocco:
Regional Investment Center (CRI)
Office Marocain de la Propriété Industrielle et Commerciale
(OMPIC) (Category: Central Trade Registry)
Fondation Création d’Entreprises de la Banque Populaire (FCEBP)
Réseau Maroc entreprendre
Incubateurs
Centre des Jeunes Dirigeants (CJD)
Chambres de commerce
Tunisia:
Business plan
development
Usually the business plan would be done after the
business model is developed and when the venture
would need to look for financial resources in order to
fund the development of their product or when they
need funding for growth as they should present to the
investors the planning and financial projections.
- Mentors
Morocco:
Club Sherpa de la Fondation Saham
AFEM: Association des femmes chefs d’entreprise
Réseau Entreprendre Maroc
Maroc entreprendre
FCEBP
Tunisia:
Elgazala Technopark
Access to financial The venture will have different financial needs Arabic countries: Africinvest, MENA private
Morocco:
Fonds SAHAM

resources depending on their stage of development.
- At early stage funding for start-up the company
- Funding for prototyping or Proof of Concept
development
- Growth
Those needs would be evaluated by the entrepreneur
together with the Incubator and the mentor and
depending of the status of development and the
financial needs, different options of financing can be
considered:
- For ideation, the Incubator could provide some
small funding to entrepreneurs
- Start-up creation, the incubator can introduce
the ventures to local private investors such as
Business Angels or early stage VCs. Also the
incubators based on their knowledge on the
existing national public funds for the
- Proof of Concept/Prototyping. The financial
resources could vary depending on the national
public funds available in each country (e.g. AMDI,
Moroccan Investment Development Agency, or new
versions of INTILAK in Morocco which finishes in
2014). Therefore the Incubator’s will support
incubates in preparing the applications for opting
to such funds.
- VCs. The incubators will organize investor’s
forums in order to connect entrepreneurs with
private investors.
Based on experience of KIC InnoEnergy it is important
that the incubator promote the collaboration with the
investor’s community. For those it is important that the
Incubators established relationships and collaboration
agreements with existing funds or investors associations
at local level such as the Chartage Business Angel in
Tunisia, or SAHAM in Morocco, but also at international
Equity Association
France: Fonds de Solidarité Prioritaire
Europe: European Bank for reconstruction and
development, European Bank of Investment,
European Regional Development Funds,
AMDI
Fondation Création d’Entreprises de la Banque Populaire
Centre Marocain de l’Innovation
RMIE
Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique et Technique
(CNRST)
OCP Skills
Attijari Wafa Bank foundation
Tunisia:
The Swiss Fund – Le Fond Suisse
Carthage Business Angel
Tunisian Association for Capital Investors (ATIC)

level with associations like, Africinvest or MENA private
Equity Association among others.
Also another possibility to consider is to establish
relationship with European programmes focus on
development of Maghreb region. Some institution such
the European Regional Development Funds, European
Investment Bank, Fonds de Solidarité Prioritaire from
France
Networking The incubator will organize as part of the services
deliver to entrepreneurs networking events. In order to
make it productive those events should have a clear
focus. There are different types of networking events
that can be run:
- Networking with successful entrepreneurs to
learn from their experience
- Networking with companies to establish potential
commercial agreements.
- Networking with potential investors in order to
know what they are looking for when investing in
companies and for funds raising
Incubator’s staff will be in charge of the
organization in collaboration with actors of the
entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Morocco:
Consortium Innovation&Compétitivité Maroc
OMPIC
R&D Maroc
Les clusters
Bourse Nationale de sous Traitance et de Partenariat (Bnstp)
Les CJD
Maroc Entreprendre
Foundation du Jeune Entrepreneur
Tunisia:
CSNER - Chambre Syndicale Nationale des Energies Renouvelables
Elgazala Technopark
Commercialization Commercialization is not just finding a customer for
entrepreneurs. The ventures have to find them
themselves as once they will fly alone they need to be
able to find customers by themselves. The
commercialization is not something that is deliver at
the end of the process but something that have to be
present since the ideation of the business. Several
services already described will contribute to facilitate
the commercialization. During the development of the
business model the entrepreneurs should take into
account what are the market needs, what is the
Incubator will have the leading role and will
promote events for connecting entrepreneurs
with ventures.
Collaboration with clusters will lead to
potential collaborations for co-development of
technologies and pilot testing
Chambers of commerce can be potential
partners for supporting entrepreneurs in the
internationalization of sales in both Arabic

Table 6: Implementation guidelines for services delivered under incubation phase
feedback of potential customers (Customer Discovery)
and adapt their products accordingly during the
technology development. The mentors and incubator’s
staff should take care that the market perspective is
taken into account from the day the ventures enter
into the Incubator in order to increase the chances of
success.
There are different ways that the incubator can
facilitate the commercialization of the venture’s
products. Here are different initiatives agreed by the
member of the project which can have impact on the
commercialization:
- Forums for promoting business connecting
companies with ventures.
- Attendance to international fairs, through
chambers of commerce
- Regular meetings with the clusters, to present
their ideas
-Technology co-development with companies.
Those companies would probably become the first
customers of the venture.
- Facilitate the contacts with companies
introducing the responsible of the companies to
entrepreneurs for pilot testing
- Creation of promotional materials with the
overall ventures supported to be distributed among
companies of the countries through events,
clusters, or chambers of commerce.
countries and Europe.

6 Conclusion
The collaboration between KIC InnoEnergy and R&D Maroc and Cluster des Energies Renouvelables de
Tunisie has brought the needed expertise and knowledge in order to develop the present deliverable.
Tunisia and Morocco as the Maghreb countries participated in the Maghrenov projects shared similar
challenges, difficulties and have many similarities in the way the business creation support is provided.
Therefore the services and actions defined here can be applied to both, Morocco and Tunisian countries.
The Service Package for entrepreneurs developed and explained under this deliverable is adapted to the
characteristics of the entrepreneurship ecosystems of the regions participating in the Maghrenov project
and is aimed to solve some of the main challenges that Tunisia and Morocco are facing in business creation.
Services described in the report are successfully implemented and tested in European context by KIC
InnoEnergy through its business creation service offering, the Highway®. However this is not a guarantee of
success as the way on how it will be implemented and the capacity to mobilize resources and establishing
collaboration among the different actors will make the difference.
In order to implement them, it was seen that the best way to do it was to take advantage of the existing
mechanisms for supporting business creation. Incubators linked to universities have been identified as the
best vehicle in order to deliver the services defined. However those already few existing incubators would
need to extend their services and adapt their infrastructure and strategy to be able to deliver the services
defined under this deliverable.

7 References
AMIC Association Marocaine des Investisseurs en Capital. Grant Thornton. Etat des lieux sur le
financement de l´innovation au Maroc [online]. Available at: http://www.jobmre.com/amic/Etat-des-
lieux-et-financement-de-linnovation-au-Maroc.pdf
Azzioui, I., Building National Networks Morocco Incubation and Spin-offs Network (MISN). Réseau Maroc
Incubation et Essaimage (RMIE).
Azzioui, I. (2013). European Tunisian Conference. Introduction to the Moroccan Research and
Innovation System. Lessons for catching-up economies [online]. Available at:
http://www.etcproject.eu/download/Tunisian%20EU%20Conf%20Ilyas%20AZZIOUI.pdf
Benner, M. (2013). Designing Comprehensive Cluster Policies in Developing Countries: Perspectives for
Morocco. MPRA Munich Personal RePEc Archive [online]. Available at: http://mpra.ub.uni-
muenchen.de/49594/
Cornell University, INSEAD, and WIPO (2014): The Global Innovation Index 2014: The Human Factor in
Innovation, Fontainebleau, Ithaca and Geneva.
Dynamic University (2014). Education and Research in the Kingdom of Morocco [online]. Available
at: http://www.dynamicuniversity.eu/jaunumi/education-and-research-in-the-kingdom-of-morocco/53/
European Commission (2013). Business Opportunities in the Mediterranean. New dynamic for SME
and cluster internationalisation [online]. Focus on ICT Morocco. Euromed @change [online]. Available at:
http://www.animaweb.org/uploads/E@C_Tunisia_ICT_FINAL.pdf
GIST Global Innovation through Science and Tecnology [online]. Available at:
http://gist.crdfglobal.org/about-gist
MITGSW Global Start-up Workshop [online]. Available at: http://mitgsw.org/2014/agenda-
events/business-plan-competition/
Ortmans, J., President Obama, King Mohammed and… Start-ups in Morocco [online]. Available at:
http://www.entrepreneurship.org/policy-forum/president-obama-king-mohammed-and-startups-in-
morocco.aspx
Tahiri, M., Haindi, M., Colombo, E., Naciri, J.K., and Schnitzer, H. (2014) Implementation of
Innovation process into Moroccan Universities: From fundamental to applied Knowledge.Vol.3 Issue 6. ISSN:
-2249-894X. Review of Research(2249-894x).
The Economist (2014). Seeding Entrepreneurship: How to Build a Venture-Finance Ecosystem
[online]. Available at: http://entrepreneurial-revolution.com/2011/11/02/seeding-entrepreneurship-how-
to-build-a-venture-finance-ecosystem-2/

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