I led the project management of Tracing the Wild, a €50k eco-data art initiative that told the stories of predators in the Maasai Mara, collaborating with creative director Seth Bockley and the Sovereign Nature Initiative (SNI). SNI is a pioneering non-profit focused on using Web 3 technology to redefine the value of nature for a sustainable future. My role included financial management, ecosystem growth, and developing a comprehensive sustainability strategy for the organization, streamlining financial flows from Web 3 entities to conservation partners. I also spearheaded fundraising efforts, including a €25k campaign with Engie North Africa and Aquasearch, supporting a groundbreaking marine wildlife conservation study in Dakhla Bay, Morocco.
At Smart Africa, my work consisted in coordinating all relevant stakeholders (30 gov’t representatives, development agencies, private sector, academia, innovative ecosystem players) to co-create and execute a strategy for the entrepreneurship and innovation program focusing on legal and regulatory frameworks (i.e. with the launch of the pan-African Startup Act initiative endorsed by the Board of Heads of State in December 2020), startup financing/investments, intellectual property protection and hubs strengthening and capacity building. Working with African governments to help them upgrade their respective national innovation strategies in order to unlock the startup ecosystem innovative potential helped me hone my skills in high level technical negotiation to promote a cultural, legal and infrastructural change.
In addition to my involvement in the African startup scene as an entrepreneur and a policy advisor, I initiated a then-pioneering social tech endeavor called Douar Tech in 2017. Serving as the founder of this non-profit organization, I established an inclusive tech hub aimed at bolstering the resilience of vulnerable youth, particularly women, hailing from marginalized backgrounds in rural and peri-urban areas. Douar Tech’s mission revolves around identifying youth with entrepreneurial potential within disenfranchised communities, equipping them with essential digital skills, and providing mentorship alongside exposure to accomplished professionals.
By the conclusion of my tenure in 2022, Douar Tech had directly empowered over 500 participants, and left a positive imprint on the lives of over 1000 indirect beneficiaries through robust Training of Trainers (ToT) mechanisms, enabling trainees to cascade their knowledge within their respective communities.
From its humble beginnings as a grassroots, volunteer-driven initiative, I steered Douar Tech’s evolution into a sustainable entity. Over the span of five years, the team expanded to include nine operational staff members and a Board of Directors composed of five seasoned professionals, operating with a yearly budget of $420,000 USD, Douar Tech stands as a testament to the transformative power of community-driven initiatives.
I have experienced first hand the entrepreneurial journey as a Diaspora returnee in a founding role in a start-up business in the tech education services sector. I joined their business as a franchisee and country launcher and manager in Africa, which further broadened my international experience after years of digital transformation advisory to large European corporations based out of Paris, France.
I successfully launched the first African hub of the global coding bootcamp Le Wagon, establishing a thriving campus in Casablanca. From setting up the business to driving demand through innovative marketing and strategic partnerships, I led 4 diverse cohorts, training 50 high-potential African talents, diaspora members, and digital nomads. These cohorts launched 10 web-based products, while I recruited and managed a team of 15 staff members, including teachers and community managers. I built a vibrant community of 1000+ participants through weekly events and introduced B2B programs with leading Moroccan clients like OCP and Roland Berger. Additionally, I organized Le Wagon’s international staff retreat in Essaouira for 80 participants in June 2018.
Be-zine is a powerful bilingual poetry zine that features a collection of poems in both English and Arabic. This anthology is divided into three evocative sections, each offering a unique exploration of identity, culture, and the human experience across borders.
The first section, Nomadic Eyes, includes poems such as Cooper’s Garage, Dos Bandeirantes, Four O’clock Flower, Limbo, Paradise 36, Zanzi Lust, Oyé, and Azorean, the Passenger Edition. These works delve into the transient nature of existence, capturing the essence of migration and the multifaceted experiences of the diaspora.
Mothers of the Land, the second section, pays homage to feminine strength, heritage, and connection to the earth with poems like My Mothers, The Thing with Hair, Queendom Under an Oak Tree, Prayers from Kigali, Cotton Talk, The Alien Blues, and Favorite Colors. This section reflects on the interwoven stories of women and the lands they nurture.
The final section, Between All of Us, offers introspective reflections on shared humanity and interconnectedness. Poems such as The Framing Acts, I Need Beauty, Backgammon Stories, If This Palace Was All Mine, At the Home, and Between the Two of Us examine the ties that unite us across time, place, and experience.
This Be-zine is an intimate, cross-cultural anthology of select poems exploring themes of displacement, belonging, and the universal quest for identity, making it a compelling addition to contemporary poetry collections.
Inspired by Salvador Dali’s Pamphlet ‘Declaration of the independence of imagination and the rights of man to his own madness’, the declaration of independence of the Maghrebian woman is a multilingual collaborative art piece with purpose. It’s a contribution to activating change in a region of the World where women and minority groups suffer vast injustices and daily indignities. The Declaration itself is a performative act of liberation. It’s also a creative and hybrid journey that starts with a mixtape shared online morphing into an art installation using lights and drones … and other forms yet to be explored!
“Le projet que vous tenez dans vos mains est le fruit d’une expérimentation très singulière, de l’index d’une vie sur Terre à l’ère de la renaissance 4.0. Ceci n’est pas un travail d’erudition. C’est plutôt la chronique d’un tumulte osé et assumé, d’un chaos nécessaire d’idées, de sensations, d’émotions d’un ordre vécu comme nouveau par les jeunes générations. Cette exploration linguistique invite l’auteur et son lecteur à redéfinir leurs repères, à explorer la territorialité de leurs langages, des mots dont ils usent pour se mouvoir dans leur réalité.
Les repères, ce sont les mots ! Dans les errances réelles ou imaginaires, les valises les plus légères et les compagnons les plus loyaux sont les mots. Ils lient, unissent, au détour d’une conversation, orale ou digitale ; ils éclairent, au coin d’un émerveillement spontané ou d’un
éclat de lucidité ; ils rassurent et consolent, dans les méandres du voyage ; ils cristallisent les furtives pensées. Qu’ils manquent ou qu’ils soient de trop, qu’ils soient justes ou dissonants, qu’ils soient résonants ou à contre-courant d’une époque qui porte aux nues la nouveauté, comme si elle était la promesse d’une innovation salvatrice, ils sont un répertoire précieux d’une musicalité et d’une sensibilité toute humaine.
Cette démarche collective est initiée par des individus ouverts à toutes les curiosités –, venus d’ici et d’ailleurs –, et qui s’attachent à observer minutieusement l’évolution sémantique de leur génération, à désambiguïser ses termes courants et leurs ramifications complexes, à mettre en lumière les actes sous-jacents au langage.
Il n’y a pas de place dans cet abécédaire pour de quelconques caprices de langage, pour des approximations grandiloquentes, pour l’acceptation de l’inconnaissable, l’inintelligible ou l’indéfinissable. A l’origine de cet abécédaire, il y a une quête de sens, de minutie et d’harmonie. Il y a une volonté d’entrer en contact avec l’intégralité de l’esprit de cette génération, ses faiblesses et ses grandeurs, ses croyances, ses idées fixes et ses limitations.
Cette démarche engage aussi intimement le lecteur pour qu’il entame son propre voyage rhétorique et qu’il saisisse en chemin son être-au-monde-et-au-langage. Cet abécédaire, à travers ses narrations illustrées, est une collection des variantes incarnées de la modernité et de ses représentations.”
