The Social & Inclusive Business Camp Supports Entrepreneurs across Africa to address the Covid-19 Crisis

The SIBC, a hybrid coaching program dedicated to entrepreneurs in their scale up stage and producing societal impacts, will be organized by the consortium with the close support of the AFD and the programme's historical partners. This year's Covid-19 crisis shows that our societies must take responsibility for environmental and social inclusion issues. We need to rapidly develop capacities for resilience and societal innovation, and to do this we need innovative social entrepreneurs more than ever.

For its 2020 edition, the SIBC is committed to working alongside entrepreneurs to strengthen their capacities for growth and resilience in the face of an unprecedented economic and health crisis, notably through the construction of an ad hoc "SOS Covid" course, available in English and French, for all candidates to the programme as well as the existing community. This 4th edition, still focused on societal innovations, will once again highlight the themes of environmental responsibility, technical innovations to serve the most vulnerable through e-health or ed-tech. 

The SIBC, a key event for African social entrepreneurs

Since the first edition in 2017, the SIBC has supported nearly 150 entrepreneurs with a strong societal impact in Africa in their transition to scale up. From the outset, SIBC has pursued a dual vocation: to support entrepreneurs with strong societal impacts in Africa in their growth and also to draw inspiration from their dynamism and strong resilience by offering them a high international visibility and by helping them emerge as strong role models for inclusive and agile entrepreneurship.

In order to best prepare them for this delicate stage in the life of their company, the programme consists of 10 weeks of e-learning training built as peer coaching, followed by a boot camp in Marseille supported by the EMERGING Valley Summit. In addition to the thematic trainings, the SIBC draws its value from the strength of its community by bringing together high-level sponsors and mentors, as well as by benefiting from the support and experience of its alumni from one year to the next. Finally, the boot camp in Marseille is also an opportunity to meet corporate partners and potential investors during a "speed pitching".

A cohesive consortium to implement the programme

The AFD has placed its trust in a consortium composed of I&P Conseil, African Management Institute (AMI), ScaleChanger and StartupBRICS to implement the programme. The consortium will continue to benefit from the support and experience of the Campus teams in future editions.

In addition to supporting entrepreneurs, the consortium will be committed to structuring the galaxy of players in the field of entrepreneurship support, in order to enable the deployment of their potential.

With a solid teaching team and a detailed knowledge of African entrepreneurship, the consortium will promote the values of the SIBC in order to convey the dynamics of an ecosystem that is now essential to the development of the continent.

SIBC 2020, support for greater resilience and social responsibility

More than ever, the SIBC's mission is to work alongside entrepreneurs to strengthen their resilience in the face of an unprecedented economic and health crisis. This fourth edition, still focused on social innovations, will highlight the themes of environmental responsibility (in particular biodiversity), technical innovation for the most vulnerable through e-health or edtechs and the resilience of territories.

Entrepreneurial communities are and will be at the forefront of building a more resilient world. The SIBC wishes to continue its commitment to these actors of change on the continent, equipping them to face the consequences of future crises. Given the particular context of crisis this year, the SIBC is committed to supporting young entrepreneurs in this time of crisis by providing them with the necessary management and reflection tools. Each entrepreneur who validates his/her application will have free access (market value 7500 euros) to a crisis business management kit developed with AMI, a partner of the SIBC. They will be able to exchange during a collaborative webinar, access management tools on the AMI platform for 2 months and thus join a community of qualified peers to accompany them during this uncertain period.

This year in particular, the SIBC community is taking on its full meaning in its ability to collectively structure itself in the face of the crisis. The SIBC must be the springboard for impact businesses to boost their individual and collective resilience, to the benefit of our societies. It will also allow to put forward inspiring, resilient and agile models developed by entrepreneurs operating on the African continent, sources of inspiration.