Tam-Tam

In December 2017, Societe Generale launched a large hackathon dedicated to the informal life course called "L'Arbre à Palabres" which took place in Abidjan. During this event, the team of the Dakar Innovation Lab in partnership with Jokkolabs, YUP, Manko, Bluenove and Le Plateau, have made the commitment to continue the adventure.

This second round is called "Tam-Tam".

Officially launched last April on the 16th, "Tam-Tam" hackathon is chapter 2 of the project initiated in December 2017. Societe Generale had launched in Abidjan a hackathon dedicated to the informal life course called "The Palaver Tree". Following the success of this initiative, Dakar's Innovation lab team, under the impetus of the AFMO innovation Head Valérie Noëlle Kodjo Diop, in partnership with Jokkolabs, YUP, Manko, Bluenove and Le Plateau, has committed to pursuing the adventure by organizing a second and virtual hackathon: Tam-Tam.

This event aims to go beyond the first round in Abidjan. This initiative is resolutely digital, by creating a dedicated platform for the bootcamp and opening the debate to hundreds of informal actors. The project has been adapted to include all those who do not have access to digital tools. A dozen workshops were organized in several African countries to gather the needs of more than 400 women and men from the informal sector. Through listening, humility and learning, this bootcamp and virtual hackathon will give a voice to unbanked and/or poorly-banked population on the themes of physical health and financial education.

If the actors of the informal sector have directly expressed the interest of deepening the subject of education, health has emerged as a central problem in several testimonies. "Some will say that health is far from our professions. It is no longer a question for us of considering the bank as a set of products for sale but as a platform of services to accompany the well-being of our current and future customers. Banking As A Service is being built today," said Valérie Kodjo Diop.

This time, Societe Generale wanted to involve teams of internal employees who will work alongside external startups to find solutions to the problems of non-and/or unbanked and poorly-banked-people.

Six teams were therefore selected and presented their projects on 11th July to Societe Generale jury in Algiers. The finalists carried the colors of Morocco, Côte d'Ivoire, Chad, Cameroon, Senegal, Congo, Ghana, Guinea and Algeria.

At the end of the deliberations, the two teams InvestED and Yup Prévoyance won the competition. They flew for a week of learning expedition in South Africa. The winners from external startups benefited from one month of "excubation" in South Africa for the InvestED team and one month in Kenya for the Yup Prévoyance team. Finally, a one-month incubation program was set up in the winning subsidiaries of each team to co-construct the projects together for their future deployment within the entities, namely: Senegal and Morocco.

All teams benefited from the support and support of the Dakar Innovation Lab.