Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus kicks off global accelerator program in Tunisia

As Tunisia begins to overturn years of economic inefficiencies, stagnant creativity, and systemic corruption, entrepreneurship has begun to gain ground among Tunisians as a means of surmounting economic hardship as well as addressing social issues. The creation of Lab’ESS, an incubator dedicated to socially conscious businesses in Tunisia, demonstrates the growth of this awareness.

It’s this intersection of increased awareness of social welfare and economic growth that prompted the African Development Bank (AfDB), and Yunus Social Business (YSB) to develop the iBDA social business accelerator (‘ibda’ literally means “launch” in Arabic). YSB is an organization co-founded by Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus, as a spin-off of The Grameen Creative Lab, to focus on providing funding and advisory services for socially conscious businesses all around the world. This pilot program, the first accelerator for social businesses, will ideally be recreated around the world.

The initiative invites 11 entrepreneurs from around Tunisia to participate in a two-month intensive training course. Following a highly competitive application process in April, the project launched in May and will run until July. The selected entrepreneurs have settled at Cogite, Tunisia’s first co-working space. Their various projects inhabit a variety of sectors, including handicrafts, agriculture, recycling, and eco-tourism.

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Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus kicks off global accelerator program in Tunisia