Today, we had a discussion at the Rabat Technopark with MCISE, where we learned the term social entrepreneurship, which is a term I had not really heard before, and made the site visit stand out to me. MCISE is the Moroccan Center for Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship. Throughout the trip, we have heard from many speakers who showcase entrepreneurship in the traditional way of creating a product, then finding your market and scaling up to make a profit. However, MCISE does not have the same take. Instead of thinking how they can make money they look at how do we solve a social problem in Morocco meaning that their business model is shaped around an idea rather than profit. This change to me is what social entrepreneurship is and I think it showcases the entrepreneurial scene in Morocco because people are creating things that serve Morocco instead of just having an idea for a good and then making it. People in Morocco actually take time to help their society as a whole rather than just themselves making a profit and I think that is just part of the culture here.

Another majorly different thing about MCISE is the way they get their funding. Many places we have visited receive funding from the government. However, MCISE finds its own funding through outside sources. One way MCISE creates its own funding is by selling its services to the government and receiving money. By doing this, they are able to remain autonomous, which is a big part of who they are as a company. They even said that they would like to fully fund themselves within the next 5 to 10 years. Currently they have outside partners for their programs and one of the big ones they mentioned was the European Union gave funding for one of their large scale projects. By creating revenue their selling their services and also having outside donors they are making their way to being financially autonomous which is something they said many others are trying to get to because their of the benefits of being incontrol. By not having one source of funding they are also able to chose their own projects and help the communities that are in need. They said that they try to reach all communities in Morocco even if they have to have some intermediates.

MCISE, I would say, is a big contrast from Casablanca Technopark, which is the company that I am doing my project on. The technopark has always had government influence since it was started as an initiative from the King in the early 2000s, and to this day, it is still influenced by the government. While it is part of their business model, it does provide a significant contrast to MCISE and something I did not really think about before, since almost all places we visited had influence from the government. The technopark keeps the government because it provides constant support and gives them a stable foundation to keep doing work on as well as the government provides them credibility. While MCISE is working to autonomy Casablanca Technopark is keeping the government on purpose all because their business models are for different purposes even though they are both incubators. While they both care about supporting Moroccan entrepreneurs by being incubators, they pursue their goals from two completely different paths. All in all it shows us their is no right way to run a business, it just depends on what matters to you even if the businesses have the same overall goal.