Top 5 challenges currently facing Tunisia that will inspire you to launch your next startup
By: Sahar Ben Rached
Tags: Ideation, Startup, Tunisia, Problem Solving, Entrepreneurship

Many of today’s most successful companies were born during crisis times. To name a few, General Motors, IBM, and more recently Airbnb, were all founded during financial recession times and they not only survived but thrived.

There is no question that today’s worst health crisis due to COVID-19 spreading will result in a great recession. However, it is undoubtedly a turning point in the Tunisian economy, and mainly for the local startup ecosystem.

The COVID-19 crisis has revealed the huge creative potential of Tunisian researchers, engineers and entrepreneurs and their devotion to being in the front lines to fight the pandemic. Since the burst of the crisis, several national inventions from military robots to medical equipment were put into action and developed in response to the emergency. The technical projects built by Fablabs and technopoles, research centers, private companies and even the innovative and prompt strategies executed by the government, will be the launchpad for more business initiatives post COVID-19.

If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, and you have been discouraged by the current difficult economy state, I wanted to remind you that the greatest success opportunities lay behind the greatest challenges.

Here are the 5 most urgent challenges facing our country today that you can focus on solving and enhancing by launching your next startup:

1- Healthcare

Even though we all knew the Tunisian healthcare system was unreliable, we all were shook to the core by its failure to confront emergencies, let alone worldwide pandemics. Our public hospitals (and private clinics to a lesser extent) lack the essentials for health protection for doctors, nurses, and patients. The ever-increasing number of COVID-19 Tunisian cases is likely to lead to the total crash of the healthcare system unless the engineers and inventors unite their efforts to supply the demand in equipment and instruments during the crisis, and most importantly after it ends. It is by no means the shortage in supplies nor the incompetency of our engineers and researchers that was hindering the development of the healthcare system. And now that our country is in an unprecedented shortage, the demand for locally manufactured medical instruments and equipment to properly supply our hospitals will start and keep on increasing even after the COVID-19 crisis. The demand will also grow internationally as the pandemic is draining healthcare systems around the world.

2- Education

Uncountable E-learning platform projects, in Tunisia and on an international level, were buried since early development stages. Mostly because there is no market demand. However, the COVID-19 crisis proved the necessity of distance learning and the building of an appropriate infrastructure to not only defeat lockdown repercussions but to provide the learner with enough freedom and flexibility that would eventually boost productivity and bring about concrete results. Online learning, along with teleworking, shuttered the myths of mandatory presence and strict timelines. Adaptive and successful organizations, be it educational institutes or companies, will come to conclude that online learning and teleworking are the best approaches to enhance productivity and ensure efficiency. The best solution would also be developing customized and technically reliable platforms that perfectly meet the organization’s needs. Digitizing the educational system through E-learning has numerous benefits that were highlighted by the COVID-19 crisis, yet still to be explored afterward.

3- Network infrastructure

As the government announced the continuing of the university year through online learning during quarantine, the decision confronted a strong backlash from students, professors, and syndicalist parties. Indeed, we previously praised E-learning and teleworking, but the government decision has raised concerns about the connectivity issues that a great population in Tunisia still faces today. Hence, enhancing the Network infrastructure in Tunisia, and most urgently, distributing to all populated areas in the country should be a priority to entrepreneurs and innovators. Undoubtedly, the establishment of an extended Internet and Mobile infrastructure is the building block for further technical and social development. Thus, today’s inaccessibility of a great number of Tunisian students and pupils to a fair network is a concrete problem that may serve as the mission of the next hit Tunisian startup.

4- Supply chain

Covid19 crisis led to an exaggerated increase in prices of all vital products. From medical protection wears to medicines and food, Tunisians have endured the greed of merchants during a sensitive time. An effective supply chain management in the related industries would have enhanced the government’s endeavors to control prices while responding to the increasing demand. To be specific, a supply chain is a network between a company and its suppliers to produce and distribute a certain product or service. The key players in the supply chain are producers, vendors, warehouses, transportation companies, distribution centers, and retailers. While we have seen a lot of initiatives from distribution and transportation companies, the inconsistency of the rest of the entities resulted in an insignificant impact. That’s why we are in a persistent need for innovative supply chain management solutions leveraging the latest technologies for fair and transparent product pricing. It is important to highlight that the increased prices of vital products in Tunisia is not a newly surfacing issue with the COVID-19 crisis, but rather an ever-existing socio-economic issue that needs urgent addressing.

5- Defense and military

The national security and military system in Tunisia has used the police robot PGuard, which is manufactured by the Tunisian robotics company ENOVA Robotics, to ensure citizens are adhering to lockdown. While the deployment deal between the company and the Interior Ministry remains confidential, it is enough proof that the defense and military system is trusting and welcoming Tunisian services and products. Hence, this initiative may be the starting point for developing more businesses operating in the defense and security industry. Our country is at a challenging time and a geographic location that makes it vulnerable to attacks, so it is now the right time for innovators to cooperate with the national defense system to work on designing solutions and equipment, robots, security systems, network and communication, software and transport, to name a few applications.