Today marked the start of the site visits tied to the Plus3 program. With the focus on entrepreneurship and technology, we made our first stop at the Casablanca Technopark. Here, we learned about how the application and acceptance process works for startups seeking to use the resources that the Technopark provides. I believe this detail is important to keep in the back of my head going into my team’s upcoming visit to Association Nationale du Développement Digital (ANDD). Since we are missing out on some important information required for our report, it’s essential to narrow down exactly how they select their clients.
Following lunch at the Californie Mall (not a typo!), our group began the excursion to Marrakesh. Along the way, we stopped at Mohammad VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), where we begun our tour at the 1337 Coding School. There, we learned about their extremely rigid application process, which includes applicants taking difficult memory games to weed out unfit students, information sessions, and a 4-week “pre-course” to teach the essentials of coding and further eliminate students. I was fascinated by both the depth of this process and how different it is compared to how most universities manage their selection process back home. I feel that through this experience the client selection process for ANDD came to mind again, highlighting the importance of asking related questions during our site visit next week.
To wrap up the day, we visited the opposite side of campus. Here, you can find StartGate, the University’s launching pad for entrepreneurship. I noticed here specifically that the speaker really liked to dive right into the company’s strengths and opportunities, while avoiding any weaknesses or threats to the company. After realizing this, I thought back to the other speakers today and realized it was the same case, and it took some prodding from the active groups to pull this information out of the speakers. When we finally arrive at ANDD, it’s essential that we uncover this information for ourselves through questioning.
After concluding the visits today, we finished our journey to Marrakesh, where we’ll stay for two nights and discover how this city differentiates itself from Rabat and Casablanca.