Mauritanian HABIDEM wins Med’Innovant Africa 2023

Habidem, a Mauritanian small business known for turning local resources into a bio-sourced thermal insulator from Typha, a noxious plant, has been awarded Med’Innovant Africa 2023 prize, an innovation competition created by Marseille-based urban and economic development Agency Euroméditerranée.

Led by Oumar WELE, the company bagged €7,000 financial assistance, a full support package to build concrete foundations for the business, links to thrive.

Habidem addressed the issue of African cities faced with the impact of climate change during two days competition that took place at ‘Emerging Valley Summit’ on November 27 and 28, in the city of Marseille.

This year’s edition, the fourth since the inception of the challenge in 2019, aimed at unearthing exciting African innovators with the capacity to test out their innovative solutions, where possible, in the EuroméditerranéeEcoCité, setting up these start-ups, small and medium enterprises in the developer’s catchment area in view of increasing their market share in Europe and attracting micro-businesses, SMEs and European groups looking to develop their business in Africa.

Habidem beat four other ventures coming from Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritania and Morocco to win the prize for the final. The competitors had a five-minute pitch each during the Summit.

Some 175 candidates from dozens of African countries applied for the challenge presented as an opportunity to identify, promote, and accelerate to the next level project developers (start-ups, small and medium enterprises) looking to bring to market innovations (solutions and services) that are in line with the new objectives of the Mediterranean and African sustainable resilient regions.

Euroméditerranée, launched in 1995, is an urban renewal project underway in Marseille to create anecodistrict in the neighborhood of La Joliette.

The project brands itself as Europe’s most ambitious urban redevelopment initiative.