About Honoris Collective Lab (Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa)
The Honoris Collective Lab is a dedicated space for students to meet, learn, connect, create, share, and inspire. This collaborative incubation space hub is dedicated to innovative project owners who want to start their own business. It is designed to develop an innovative entrepreneurial spirit among its students.
A coaching team accompanies them from the initial idea to the market, in collaboration with the Wiki Start Up incubator. Selected candidates receive (1) specific assistance tailored to the nature of their projects, (2) a co-working space and (3) access to a strong network of teachers and experts enabling them to follow a rigorous incubation program.
Watch as Chaker Slaymer, manager and director of COLLECTIVELAB give us a virtual tour of this makerspace.
Vision
The Honoris Collective Lab concept is a response to the needs of today’s digitally complex and highly mobile world economy, which is built upon a complex network of international supply chains and services that exist either in faraway factories or cyberspace: geography is increasingly irrelevant, which is why African graduates (like any other graduate) must compete on a global stage.
These highly specialised areas of focus – entrepreneurship and learning how to grow a business in a world of digitization, automation, and AI – reflect a much-needed, fresh and innovative approach to learning. The soft skills that they nurture are not only invaluable for employment but also for interpersonal and cultural agility.
The Honoris Collective Lab supports these capabilities by promoting collaborative intelligence between students, professors, researchers, professionals, and civil society actors. This provides undergraduates with an exceptional breadth of exposure to world views and attitudes. It also creates a sense of ‘mental agility’ and problem solving that encourages creativity and sharing.
Testimonials
Hajer Maamri, a 5th year architecture student, is one such entrepreneur who shares more about her project and her experience with the Collective Lab.
SmartPonic is a smart device serving as an intelligently designed lamp with indoor hydroponic vertical cultivating system, providing up to two times more productivity. The Collective Lab provided me with invaluable support during the growth of this project. I’ve learned a lot from this experience. I have benefited from the public speaking and innovation module, business models and business plans, marketing, finance and human resources and there’s yet more learning in this experience. My project is currently at the business plan study stage and I have even been introduced to lots of contests which could be a potential source for financing the project.