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I am especially grateful to the amazing CTIC staff, for accepting me as an intern and for patiently
helping and guiding me through the research done in Entrepreneurship and Information
Communication Technologies.
To Mrs Eva S. EBION, Mr Yann LEBEUX, Mr Jean R. S. MANGA, Miss Anta NDIAYE,
Mr Abdoul Aziz SY, Ms. Fabienne DIALLO, Mr Mamadou L. DIALLO, Mrs Rgina MBODJ a
devoted and inspiring staff.
I wish to express my utmost gratitude to Miss Mame Yauto FAYE, for her precious and dedicated
support as my thesis supervisor.
To Mr Brian Henia, who kindly accepted to provide information for the writing of this thesis as an
iHub manager.
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Dedication..............................................................................................................................................2
Acknowledgements...............................................................................................................................3
Abbreviations................................................................................................................4
Summary...............................................................................................................................................6
Introduction....................................................................................................................................7
FIRST PART: GENERAL AND METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORKS
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Introduction:
From the prehistoric period to the twenty first century, technology has proved to be a
necessary and instinctive mean to solve problems or adapt to the environment and make great
progress in all the domains from the less to the most important; examples include medicine,
education, science, technique, communication, etc.
Thus, it permitted to some societies especially the western ones- to reach such a level
of development that technology became a mainstream fact. More than ever, the majority of
people in the world are using in their everyday lives Information Communication
Technologies, defined by the Larousse dictionary as a set of techniques and computer
equipments allowing long-distance communication by the use of electronic tools. There are
several, for instance the television, the mobile phone, the computer, etc. Knowledge and
information became easy to acquire and barriers have been removed, making communication
easier too, mainly due to the Internet.
The world became a real global village with the Internet; everything and everybody can
meet up in this virtual world. Besides, in 2012, the census of Internet surfers has been
assessed to 2.4 billion in 2012.1 The smooth running of information, the everyday
innovations, the exchanges and all the achievements that people contributed to build the web
made the globalization necessary.
Added to this, around the thirties, still in the western countries, and thanks to
technology, a new kind of business came into being: websites, software and applications
became source of revenue and a great advantage for their economies. Founded in 1939, the
famous Hewlett-Packard made a turnover of 118 billion in US dollars in 20082, other
companies can be named like Ebay, one of the biggest worldwide e-commerce website or
Dailymotion, the French video sharing website.
These companies are the result of innovative ideas; most of the time linked to
Information Communication Technologies, growing rapidly and proposing new products or
services that have a large scope impact on populations. Also, the dynamism of this sector is
important in the way that it is considered as a factor of growth and one of the main insights of
1
World Internet Usage Statistics News and Population Stats - World Internet Users and Population
Stats
2
http://fr.wikipedia.org - Hewlett-Packard
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http://www.myfrenchstartup.com/
http://data.worldbank.org - Sub-Saharan Africa (developing only)
5
http://79.170.40.42/ - Top 5 applications made in Africa
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FIRST PART:
GENERAL AND METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORKS
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Section 2 : Objectives
A.
General objective :
The general objective is to know how to improve the ICT entrepreneurship sector and
the accompaniment of startups by CTIC by taking into account the individual (as an
entrepreneur), his environment, the influencing factors and other keys to success resulting
from benchmarking.
B.
Specific objectives :
Section 3: Hypotheses
As first assumptions, we have drawn the following hypotheses:
- The technology entrepreneurs in Senegal are for the majority young people, from
Dakar that take the initiative to create their own companies after their graduation. They are
high qualified, are also aware of the problems around them.
- The factors to take into account as influencing the creation and the growth of
technology startups are the level of education, the place of education, the competences, the
infrastructures, the market, the funding of the startups etc.
- The differences of incubation models are linked to the services provided, to the
manner that the incubatees problems are handled and the structure of the business and ICT
ecosystems.
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Wim Naud, Adam Szirmai, Micheline Goedhuys: Entrepreneurship, Innovation and economic
Development, Hardcover, 25 June 2011, 256 Pages
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Jonathan Oppenheimer, Michael Spicer, Alberto Trejos, Paul Zille, Jessica Benjamin,
Domingo Cavallo, Eric Kacou and Benjamin Leo: Putting Young Africans to Work: Addressing
Africas youth unemployment, study report, 92 Pages.
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Geoffrey Jones and R. Daniel Wadhwani: Entrepreneurship and Business History: Renewing the
Research Agenda, working paper, 2006, 51 pages.
12
Ahmed Dahmani : Les TIC : une chance pour lAfrique ?, in Socit numrique et dveloppement
en Afrique, Ed Karthala, 2004, 22 pages.
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13
Yvon Gasse: Linfluence du milieu dans la cration dentreprise , Laval University, article, 2003,
16 pages.
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McKinsey Global Institute: Lions go digital: the Internets transformative potential in Africa,
report, McKinsey & Company, November 2013, 24 pages.
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Thiam Ndeye Fatou Coundoul : Participation of ICT in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Development in the Education and Research in Senegal, MCTTIC / SENEGAL, Genve, 1921
January 2011, 7 pages.
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Rustam Lalkaka : Technology business incubators to help build an innovation-based economy,
Journal of Change Management, vol 3, n 2, Henry Stewart Publications, 2002, 11 pages
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Jenny C. Aker and Isaac M. Mbiti: Mobile Phones and Economic Development in Africa,
working paper 211, Center for Global Development, 2010, 45 pages.
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SECOND PART:
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
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19
Yvon Gasse : Linfluence du milieu dans la cration dentreprise , article, Laval University, page
2.
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Documentary research
The documentary research has been absolutely useful to better understand some
concepts related to the subject. It consisted in searching for books, theses, studies, articles,
video films on internet and also in going to the Enda library.
What were surprising are the various findings in terms of materials or approaches for
treating the subject, due to its link with ICTs.
It provided many interesting works, old and recent, that allowed perceiving the
evolution of the issue over time and its situation according to geographical areas. And despite
the quite newness of the topic in Senegal, much information have been found and turned out
to be pertinent, which rendered the study more fascinating.
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Questionnaires
The questionnaire is a tool used to record and gather quantitative and qualitative
information to be explained and analyzed. It allows studying psycho sociological facts. It can
touch a large population and give a clear vision of the situation.
Here it is relevant to use it because we need to know about the entrepreneurs and the
internal and external factors that affect their companies.
The questionnaire targets the ICT entrepreneurs that started their businesses for a
maximum of 5 years now.
C.
Interview guide
The interview guide will allow gathering qualitative information from people who work
in incubators in Senegal and Kenya. It will be the source of our comparative study and be
about the following themes:
Their incubatees
Since it will permit to compare the two models of incubation, the same criteria to assess
their differences will be taken. That is the reason why the choice has been made on Kenya
because:
It is a country with about the same economic structure as Senegal, if we proceed by
elimination.
It is well known as a country with a high concern with the ICT place in economic
development.
We chose to get in touch with two incubators managers, Yann Lebeux from CTIC
Dakar and Brian Henia from iHub, for semi-directive interviews.
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Section 4: Sampling
The questionnaires have been submitted to technology entrepreneurs who run startups
that are less than 5 years in Senegal; it includes those who are incubated by CTIC and those
who are not. They are 60 in number.
The sample is composed of:
30 incubatees
30 non incubated technology companies
We assessed around 180 technology entrepreneurs in Senegal. Given that the sample
represents the third of the technology entrepreneurs in Senegal, their representativeness is
assured.
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B.
a.
Vision
The vision of CTIC is clear: Become the leading Hub in West Africa for the emergence
and the growth of high-potential IT and mobile entrepreneurs and foster real socio-economic
changes in the region.
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C.
D.
The incubator is composed of a little staff of 8 very dynamic persons.. Their job consists
in the organization of the activities related to the incubation, the coaching of the enterprises,
the communication with stakeholders. Achieving these tasks in a daily basis is a quite tough
and exhausting. The internship at CTIC showed us that it was a sustained
sustained work pace and very
different from the majority of enterprises. It bears witness to the commitment, the passion and
the unity of the team.
Regina MBODJ
Executive Director
Yann LE Beux
Jean MANGA
Catalyst
Business Developer
Mamadou L. DIALLO
Eva S. EBION
Administrative and
Financial Manager
Communication
Manager
Abdoul Aziz SY
Fabienne DIALLO
Anta NDIAYE
Program
Manager
Business
Developer
Administrative
Assistant
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The incubation
The incubation proposes rent services, support and business development for
entrepreneurs who are starting up their ICT businesses and those who already created theirs.
- The Provision of office spaces with high-speed internet
- The Follow up meetings : 1 hour per week
- Business development : 2 hours per week
- Coaching and competences improvement of the teams
- Tax and accounting management
- Meetings with principals (ADIE, ARTP, etc)
- Organization of meetings to promote the products of the startups
- Consultancy : marketing (full time), Finance, Legal
- Medias and Communication Pack: website, facebook, press briefing etc.
- Visibility of Entrepreneurship days and other networking events
- Support to participations in international IT exhibitions and conferences- grouped
stands
- Lobby and introductions to decision makers from the public and private sectors
- Free trainings and certifications (Finance, Management, etc)
- Support for fund raising and recruiting
- Internal technical trainings
- Networking with other entrepreneurs
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CTIC bases its procedures on the method proposed by InfoDEV23 and a demarche in
four
stages:
Stage zero: It is about contributing on the awareness of the importance and the
opportunities linked to innovation and entrepreneurship. This stage is not taken in charge by
CTIC.
Stage one: To go from the idea to the fulfillment, allow to the enterprise to set up and
start working to make the business plan viable. This is the pre incubation stage.
Stage two: Support the development of the companies of the ICT sector that have a
recognized presence and experience which have a high growth potential. This stage is the core
activity of the incubation.
Stage three: Accompany the qualified companies in their consolidation in a postincubation stage. This phase allows forming a resources network that can be mobilized in
support to the companies during the incubation.
F.
1.
The incubator offers it services to two types of clients the resident clients and the virtual
clients.
a)
The resident clients are those who are located in the same space as the incubator.
The resident clients are:
23
infoDev is a multi-donor trust fund within the World Bank that seeks to empower innovators to test,
shape, finance, make, and distribute their products influencing transformative solutions to local and
global challenges.
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b)
The virtual clients are those who are located in their own premises but benefit from the
services of CTIC and possibly form the shared resources (meeting rooms, business lounge
etc.)
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2.
Since the beginning of CTICs activities, one of its incubated companies have graduated
and achieved their goals. The duration of their incubation is 3 years maximum.
The success stories have been chosen in consideration of their brilliant achievements.
We have:
PEOPLE INPUT
- More than 200 references in West Africa
- Offices in Cameroon, Ivory Coast & Burkina Faso
- 30 employees
- End of incubation in July 2013
SEYSOO
- Mdicis: first solution for medical and radiology offices in Senegal, sale in 2013 of the
radiology version to the medical imaging
- Winner of the FDSUT ARTP prize with SeedCom
- Study and implementation mission of a research institute for ADL
- Design of a workflow tool for SGBS with CMD as client
- Design of a profiling tool for ADEPME with GIZ as a client
- Design of an electronic payment declaration for the taxes and property office of Gabon
- Design of a web portal on finance for SBC (Sen Business Consulting)
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presence
first
of
cultural
Cultura
website
Dakar
in
Senegal
Spain
Embassy
The Networking Breakfast is a meeting between ICT SMEs and decision makers of
key sectors, a set of themes and defined sectors with 20 to 40 key actors of the targeted sector
in a professional and business setting.
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The ICT and Governance Forum is a launching of a 6 months program for ICT
accompaniment projects for Good Governance with an original format to approach a major
and media-friendly topic. It includes 60 experts, entrepreneurs and politicians from the whole
West Africa, keynote speakers, brainstorm and practical workshops.
The ICT and Governance Demo Day is the outcome of 6 months of
collaboration between the entrepreneurs and the organizations of the civil society with 200
investors, entrepreneurs, sponsors and decision makers of the public and private sector and
idea pitches from entrepreneurs from the whole West Africa.
The Business Angels35 Dinner organized or the emergence of the first Business
Angels club in Senegal with 10 to 15 high class investors, presentation pitch of 2 enterprises
per dinner. The companies are prepared by CTIC before and the networking is assured.
The Web Awards is the first gala organized to award IT entrepreneurs and players
achieving great technology innovations. Web personalities, startups and innovative
technologies are nominated. 500 to 800 entrepreneurs, executives and decision makers, public
institutions, companies and partners of all sectors take part in the event. There is a very strong
media and institutional follow up.
The JETIC is an important event for the promotion of ICTs in Senegal and Africa
including 72 hours of exchange and share between entrepreneurs and managers of the sector,
panels hosted by international experts, propositions of solutions to boost the sector, 48 hours
of coaching and mentoring to help students fulfill their projects.
H.
Partners
Placed under the aegis of the Senegalese ICT incubators Foundation (FICTIS) the
project has rapidly aroused the interest of the World Bank infoDev program and numerous
public and private partners, local and international as:
Business Angel: An investor who provides financial backing for small startups or entrepreneurs.
The capital they provide can be a one-time injection of seed money or ongoing support to carry the
company through difficult times.
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The impact
From its beginnings to now, CTIC has got some outstanding results about its
contribution to the community and the development; this includes the number of jobs created,
the growth rate of the companies turnover, the number of students involved, the effective rate
of implementation of enterprises, etc.
In this way, it has coached 1000 young entrepreneurs, 150 jobs have been created, the
turnovers growth rate of the incubated companies are up to 90% and 85% of them reached
their implementation.
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Entrepreneurship
The concept of entrepreneurship was first established in the 1700s, and the meaning has
evolved ever since. Many simply equate it with starting ones own business. Most economists
believe it is more than that.
To some economists, the entrepreneur is one who is willing to bear the risk of a new
venture if there is a significant chance for profit. Others emphasize the entrepreneurs role as
an innovator who markets his innovation. Still other economists say that entrepreneurs
develop new goods or processes that the market demands and are not currently being
supplied.
In the 20th century, economist Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) focused on how the
entrepreneurs drive for innovation and improvement creates upheaval and change.
Schumpeter viewed entrepreneurship as a force of creative destruction. The entrepreneur
carries out new combinations, thereby helping render old industries obsolete. Established
ways of doing business are destroyed by the creation of new and better ways to do them.
Business expert Peter Drucker (1909-2005) took this idea further, describing the
entrepreneur as someone who actually searches for change, responds to it, and exploits change
as an opportunity. For instance, a quick look at changes in communications from typewriters
to personal computers to the Internet illustrates these ideas.
Entrepreneurship is a discipline with a knowledge base theory. It is an outcome of
complex socio-economic, psychological, technological, legal and other factors. It is a dynamic
and risky process. It involves a fusion of capital, technology and human talent.
Entrepreneurship is equally applicable to big and small businesses, to economic and noneconomic activities.
Most economists today agree that entrepreneurship is a necessary ingredient for
stimulating economic growth and employment opportunities in all societies. In the developing
world, successful small businesses are the primary engines of job creation, income growth,
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B.
Entrepreneurial motivation:
The word motivation has its origin in the Latin word movere, meaning "to move."
It is regarded "as the inner state that energizes activities and directs or channels
behavior towards the goal". It can also be seen as a process that arouses action, sustains the
activity in progress and that regulates the pattern of activity.
Motivation is central to the way an entrepreneur behaves in a business environment.
Motivation is dependent upon the potencies of needs. Maslow identified a hierarchy of needs,
which govern the pattern of motivation. These needs are physiological, safety, social, esteem
and self-actualization.
The strength of an unfilled need of an entrepreneur and expectations of beneficialoutcomes motivate an entrepreneur for efforts in venture. Combined with these, the individual
capabilities of the entrepreneur govern his performance. The opportunities in business
environment and risk due to future uncertainty affect the rewards, which are intrinsic and
extrinsic both. Intrinsic rewards are related to factors internal to the entrepreneur, such as selfsatisfaction, pride, etc. Extrinsic rewards are more towards material, wealth and growth.
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The bottom-up approach means that local players participate in decision-making about the strategy
and in the selection of the priorities to be pursued in their local area.
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The phrase top-down means that all the directions come from the top. Project objectives are
established by the top management
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Business incubation
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B.
Business incubators
1.
Definition
Business Incubators are defined as a location in which entrepreneurs can receive proactive, value-added support, and access to critical tools, information, education, contacts,
resources and capital that may otherwise be unaffordable, inaccessible or unknown.
Well structured incubators provide links to industry; business support services to
enhance and develop business; upgrade skills and techniques; technological advice and
assistance with intellectual property protection; financial resources for research and
development; initial marketing expenses; and access to potential private investors and
strategic partners.
2.
Incubators come in many formats, mostly fitting the following four types:
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1.
Types of Benchmarking
it
Benchmarking:
involves
examining
long-term
strategies,
for
example regarding core competencies, new product and service development or improving
capabilities for dealing with change. This type of benchmarking is used by successful high
performers in order to improve a businesss overall performance.
Performance
key products and services in the same sector. In order to protect confidentiality, this type of
analysis is often undertaken through trade associations or third parties.
Process Benchmarking: it focuses on improving critical processes and operations
through comparison with best practice organizations performing similar work. This often
results in short term benefits.
Functional Benchmarking:
sectors to find innovative ways of improving work processes. This can lead to dramatic
improvements.
Internal
within the same organization (e.g. business units in different countries). Access to sensitive
and/or standardized data is easier, usually less time and resources are needed and ultimately
practices may be relatively easier to implement. However, real innovation may be lacking:
best in class performance is more likely to be found through external benchmarking.
External
opportunity to learn from those at the leading edge. This can take up significant time and
resource to ensure the credibility of the findings.
International
elsewhere in the world, perhaps because there are too few benchmarking partners within the
same country to produce valid results.
Globalization and advances in information technology are increasing opportunities for
international projects. However, these can take more time and resources to set up and
implement and the results may need careful analysis due to national differences.
The latter type is the one that interests the study.
2.
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THIRD PART:
ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK
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Gender
In the spreadsheet below, the proportions of men and women that accepted to respond to
the questionnaire is represented.
Gender
Male
Female
93,3%
6,7%
The noticeably large gap in male and female IT entrepreneurs reflects a larger country
wide and global trend. The gender gap in entrepreneurship especially remains very real in
Africa including in Senegal. Nowadays, more and more of them are going to work, some of
them create their own business but they are not numerous those who create their business in
the field of technologies. This is because women view computer science as a subject for men,
or has not developed skills in the field because they have not been exposed to the subject
matter or have been discouraged by family and friends.
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B.
The following figure shows the number of Senegalese and non Senegalese people
interviewed among the 60 respondents and their age.
Nationality
Senegalese
53
Other
Age
More than 35
43,3%
Between 26 and 35
41,7%
Between 18 and 25
Less than 18
15,0%
0,0%
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The chart below shows the study standards and the courses followed by the respondents.
Study Standards
Master
76,7%
Bachelor
O'level
PHD
High School
18,3%
3,3%
1,7%
0,0%
Subject
Computer science
48,2%
Management
32,5%
Commerce
Other
Non rponse
12,0%
4,8%
2,4%
For the study standards, 46 people out of 60 answered that they have the master degree.
The master degree is the level of study at which people stop their studies most of the time.
Master graduates are already specialized in one domain; it gives them more confidence
to go through entrepreneurship.
Bachelor students represent 18.3% of the sample. Habitually, the bachelor students who
are entrepreneurs already have experience in that domain. For some of them, they are
influenced by the policies of their schools or entrepreneurship competitions they may have
took part in.
The number of ICT entrepreneurs who stopped their studies at Olevel is 2 out of 60.
ICT entrepreneurship requires high competences that cannot be provided by high school
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D.
Place of education:
The following spreadsheet shows the place of studies and the kind of universities of the
ICT entrepreneurs.
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Their motivations
The diagram below represents the list of the 5 motivations that most of the technology
entrepreneurs ticked as answers.
Motivations
23,0%
20,6%
20,0%
18,8%
17,6%
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B.
The following figure shows the influence of the familiarity in ICTs in the creation of
technology startups.
Familiarity with ICTs
Yes
No
88,3%
11,7%
C.
2 or more
1
None
48,3%
26,7%
25,0%
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2,4%
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39,0%
13,3%
33,3%
58,5%
53,3%
Yes
Employed in a company
No
Non rponse
24 IT entrepreneurs out of 60 asserted that their former job did influence them in the
creation of their companies. Generally, those who create their companies are former
employees who create other companies that are in the same domain. It gives them knowledge
that facilitates the recognition and action on opportunities as well as to organize and manage
new ventures. There is an important role of prior career experience for the development of
entrepreneurial knowledge. Previous career experience has for example been considered
helpful for building up valuable knowledge about relevant contacts, reliable suppliers and
viable markets, which enhances entrepreneurs ability to run their businesses.
8 of the respondents were their own bosses before creating their technology companies. They
are not numerous at the national scale. They are serial entrepreneurs who often come up with
new ideas and starts new businesses. As opposed to a typical entrepreneur, who will often
come up with an idea, start the company, and then see it through and play an important role in
the day to day functioning of the new company, a serial entrepreneur will often come up with
the idea and get things started, but then give responsibility to someone else and move on to a
new idea and a new venture.
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The IT entrepreneurs were asked to tick the positive and negative factors that impact on
the growth of their companies. These are the top five of the answers.
Positive factors
Team spirit
25,4%
20,2%
19,7%
Support services
17,9%
16,8%
Negative factors
24,8%
21,1%
20,3%
19,5%
14,3%
A good network,
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organizations
makes
available
many
support
services
to
promote
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B.
negative factors
The following graphics show the influence of the business incubation on the growth of
the startups.
Support by an incubator x Positive factors
153 Yes
114 No
Team spirit
Availability of funding
Support services
Other
The lack of information on the market, technologies, regulationsStrict regulations of the sector
Difficulties to establish the company (logistics, premises)
Other
In the two graphics, we can notice that the incubated companies have fewer problems in
general than the non-incubated. The accompanied startups have a longer bar of positive
factors than the non-incubatees. They also have a shorter bar of negative factors.
The support services they are provided have a positive their effect on the situation of the
startups.
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C.
The clientele
The IT entrepreneurs were asked to assess the growth of their startups on a scale from
Poor to Excellent. This is the cross analysis of their assessment and the acceptation of the
clientele.
Clientele x Growth assessment
17
17
17
13
0
Yes, the service is well
welcomed
Poor
Fair
Other
Good
Excellent
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Ushahidi, which means testimony in Swahili, was a website that was developed to map reports
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Which tools
to collect
data?
The iHub
model
Determine
criteria
Gather
information
Draw
solutions Give
recommenda
-tions
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Omidyar Network, a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets
to create opportunity for people to improve their lives.
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Hivos, a Dutch non-governmental organization that aims to contribute to a fair, free and sustainable
world.
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A.
To the question what are the different services provided by your incubator
CTICs specific objectives are to promote tech startups and IT entrepreneurship, support
universities in entrepreneurship curriculum by organizing bootcamps, identify talented
developers and build high-impact entrepreneurs, facilitate access to market and finance for
SMEs, build high-growth and international companies, be sustainable by 2015, build and
structure a solid network with all the stakeholders and players.
iHubs specific objectives are to foster innovation by the appeal to great minds and
produce innovative applications, systems and ideas, to build a synergy in the Kenyan tech
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Fireside Chats are talks with CEOs organized in the iHub premises. They are only open and
accessible to Green members.
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B.
The incubatees:
accompany?
To be eligible for the CTIC programs, the companies that want to apply should have a
link with the ICT sector and be established, have a history, need a new boost. It can also be an
entrepreneur with an idea to be developed or a new company.
The candidates have to prove the financial viability of their project or propose a
financial plan staggered over a period of 3 to 5 years.
The candidates also have to prove that they need assistance from the incubator, for
various reasons as the lack of necessary competences to create, develop or fully operate, as
difficulties for financing their activities, assistance to reduce failure risks.
Some aspects of ones project can be valuable for the selection process as an important
job creation potential, products or services to export, an innovation, a solution to an
unrelieved need, the introduction of new competences in the incubator, etc.
Also, a trustworthy team is privileged.
The iHub system is based on the formation of a community of not only entrepreneurs
but all people who are interested in ICT and the requirement is that one who is involved in the
tech space is a programmer, web designer or mobile application developer, project developer.
White membership is the first level of membership that all iHub members must go
through. Membership is open and free to work from the physical space. It is also the
membership that the Green membership will default to after the arranged period expires.
Green Membership will be offered to white members who apply for it. The prerequisite
is that the member is involved in a project needs a physical location to work out off, to source
for other developers and designers to join the project, or when his project will grow, create a
minimal viable product or service that is ready for help to scale.
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The main difficulties encountered by the incubatees and the way they are
handled:
The main difficulties encountered by the startups and the entrepreneurs in CTIC are
linked to misunderstandings and conflicts between associate entrepreneurs and the lack of
competent human resources, the volatility of the market, and the lack of funding.
At the iHub, when asked to them, the first problem mentioned by the members is the
lack of financial means, then collaboration with the right mentor, and the revenue generation.
The CTIC startups are often founded by people who already have worked enough to
save a capital which permits to invest in the creation of their companies. It may happen that
young and talented entrepreneurs want to implement their ideas, and then the lack of financial
means is a real break.
To solve the conflicts between associate members, CTIC have recourse to mediation
and discussions with the parties. CTIC also helps its clients in the recruitment of staff by
giving advices and, taking part in the job interviews.
About the problems with the market, the entrepreneurs are used to do many tests and
learn to know well their clients. Sometimes, they switch their clientele from business to
consumer to business to business, for example, the startup Mlouma.com changed its target
after having realized that farmers were not ready to pay for its service, it is now dealing with
economic interest groups.
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C.
The relationship the incubators have with their partners and the way they
are helpful:
CTIC partners are well known corporations and organizations as the FICTIS, the World
Bank, and the ARTP etc. These partners take part in the model of the incubator. The funding
of CTIC depended on them at 55% in 2013. They are helpful in the sponsoring of the
numerous events organized. However, for the majority of them the support is limited to the
funding and sponsoring despite the CTIC attempts to have a freefone or to get important
players coming for interactions and exchanges more often.
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great user experience wisdom for local startups centered on how Google has successfully
utilized user experience methods with examples from actual projects.
In any business model, having partners is an ingredient to success. iHub partnership
structure gives more various advantages. Its partners contribute to the community by offering
talks from experienced people. Most important is to build effective partnerships and structures
of collaboration within the community. The partners of iHub seem more flexible and involved
than those of CTIC.
To the question are the behaviors of the market and the potential
costumers in your country favorable to the growth of the companies, the managers
answered:
90% of CTIC startups conceive and provide business to business services as
management softwares or e-reputation management. This model works well as Senegalese
companies all trend toward the digitization of their systems. Figure out the behaviors of the
market for businesses is easy.
The e-commerce is the service par excellence of the private individuals. However they
are more difficult to satisfy. Senegalese recently began to use technology services and
products despite the high mobile and internet penetrations. The users are very few. Many
trying outs, service withdrawals or validation have to be carried out by a startup to manage.
In Kenya, there are a high number of mobile subscribers and internet users; they are
about 46 million from 4 service providers. Some of Nairobis success can be attributed to high
mobile penetration that has created a mass market for tech-oriented businesses. Due to the
high mobile penetration, and the mobile money system, Kenyan people turned out to be
flexible and adopted the technology services.
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Silicon Savannah, like Silicon Valley refers to the Kenyan technology center.
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Are the current policies and regulatory regime concerning the ICTs and
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CEOs and Business Angels to help the entrepreneurs in advices and experience share. Those
mentors can be appointed to the entrepreneurs in an appropriate way, according to their field
of activity or other similarities especially for young ones.
The creation of a market study unit that will help new ventures in the conception and
perfecting of their services by the census of the lifestyles, needs, and behavior of the targeted
customers (the private individuals).
As some startups at their beginning do not really know whether the service will be adopted or
not because of its novelty and the technology that characterizes it. This would actually fit the
incubatees of the booster program as they need to know quickly if their projects are worth
pursuing.
The design of a profiling tool or personality assessment grid for the candidates to job
offers. As many IT companies struggle to find quality employees, CTIC should help them in
the recruitment by the means of an attitude and aptitude assessment tool that will determine
which kind of person is in front of them during job interviews in a quite accurate and verified
way.
The organization of ICT services promotion events because Senegalese consumers are
maymouna711@gmail.com
As an incubator, CTIC cannot ignore the situation of its ecosystem. It has to play a
role in the structuring of the link between the concerned entities and the framing of policies. It
could involve the private sector as large companies are business and organizations that are
beyond the start-up and growth phases of the business cycle. They have more resources that
businesses that are lower down the business cycle can tap into. They can provide markets and
access to markets, inputs in terms of technology and funding and can lobby the government to
create an environment conducive to the entire ecosystem.
The creation of a research unit that will provide and publish evidence-based findings
To foster the involvement of their human resources by a clear definition of the vision
of the company. Only a clear vision backed by a strong why transmitted to them can turn
employees into quality ones. As founders, entrepreneurs are most of the time driven and
passionate about their vision and they must rely on the workers to represent the company to
partners, customers and the community.
The ICT entrepreneurs should unite in one association to have their voice and opinions
took into account by the stakeholders. It could help them fight for improvements in their field
of activity.
To the public authorities and concerned agencies, we recommend:
The implementation of an investment fund pool that will settle the lack of funding of
the startups. The grants can be allocated after a selection of the best projects that submitted
their applications, all of this managed by a program.
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Conclusion:
Entrepreneurship has always turned out to be indispensable for the emergence and
development of a society. Arguments of this fact go from examples of creation of wealth to
the decrease of the unemployment rate to the solutions to needs of the populations. As the
Information Communication Technologies evolve, innovation has become the main driver of
the rise to top for any country in this century. It is all the more important for African ones
since it is able to propose services adapted to their markets and realities.
In Senegal, ICT entrepreneurship has known great progress in the ten last years. More
and more technology startups are sprouting although their sustainability is uncertain for some
reason or another. This brought us to wonder: If entrepreneurship is a support to development,
what does support and foster entrepreneurship?
The purpose of this study consisted in the proposition of lines of improvement for the
ICT entrepreneurship sector and the accompaniment of startups by CTIC, the first ICT
incubator in Senegal and West Africa. This has been made by taking into account the
individual (as an entrepreneur), his environment, the influencing factors and other keys to
success resulting from benchmarking against an Anglophone country.
It appeared that the technology entrepreneurs in Senegal are for most of them
Senegalese who quitted their jobs with the ambition to develop their country and apply their
own approaches and methods freely. The factors linked to the development of their companies
involved the team spirit, a good network, competent human resources, difficulties to find
funding, a lack of information on the market, the technologies and the regulations among
others. The findings of the benchmarking also proved that the problems of the technology
entrepreneurship field in Senegal depended mainly on its ecosystem.
The hypotheses put forward have been partly confirmed, partly invalidated. The results
of the researches are surprising in some aspects. Many of the answers collected from the
investigations are not those which would come first to mind for novices. A few people would
talk about the lack of competent human resources as a major problem to the development of
those startups for example.
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Appendices
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Is the current regulatory regime concerning the ICT and entrepreneurship sector in
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