Oussayd Bouayad balances his computer on his lap while lounging on a well-worn couch. The telltale long tables and mismatched chairs of a coworking space litter the room. The building, located in an alley near Rabat’s rambling medina, is the headquarters of the Moroccan Center for Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship, a 4-year-old nonprofit that’s assigned itself the overwhelming task of “finding entrepreneurial and innovative solutions to every social challenge in Morocco.”
On the MCISE COO’s computer screen are the inner workings of what will be Morocco’s first pre-sale crowdfunding platform, he told Devex.
The platform — named Wuluj, or “access”— will act much like an e-commerce site. Pre-orders allow consumers to guarantee immediate shipment on release, manufacturers can gauge how large initial production runs should be, and sellers can be assured of minimum sales. This should help jump-start an online market for Moroccan startups such as Marginol, which produces soaps using the castoffs from olive oil production, Bouayad explained.