Profiles of main tech parks, accelerators, hackathons
Niger hosts some technological hubs that are poorly distributed in the country, but are still growing in number. The Centre Incubateur des PME au Niger (Incubator Center for SMEs in Niger - CIPMEN) launched its activities in 2014, when it became the second incubator in the West African region, after the CTIC of Dakar, Senegal. It is born of a public-private partnership, and accompanies innovative SMEs in a still difficult entrepreneurial ecosystem. According to Thomas Gilquin, Business Developer at CIPMEN and member of the Africa Innovation Program in Niger, the main challenge is to create sustainable jobs for future generations, thanks to SMEs. The balance sheet drawn up in 2017 is considered positive, with a large overrun of the objectives set and an estimated turnover of FCFA700m. CIPMEN has supported nearly 600 companies and trained more than 1,000 people. Thomas Gilquin also declared that "the CIPMEN is helping even other incubators to create themselves. We thus accompanied two incubators, one in Mali and the other in Guinea."
Le Centre incubateur de l’Université de Niamey (University of Niamey Incubator Centre) and L’Oasis dedicated to women, are also worthy of mention.