Entrepreneurship : JMJ Participation and JFN Group sign a partnership for an incubator to develop internationally competitive start-ups

JMJ Participation and JFN Group signed a strategic agreement on November 26, 2024. The aim is to set up an incubator to structure, support and develop internationally competitive startups. This ambition will become a reality with the forthcoming Douala Tech Park, a campus that will bring together a variety of companies and start-ups. A viable response to Cameroon’s business mortality rate of 95.6%. 60% of these are startups, run by young, inexperienced entrepreneurs lacking a long-term vision.

Today, we want to provide this missing link in the entrepreneurial ecosystem to ensure that start-ups or even experienced workers who want to embark on entrepreneurship have the training and support for their project that they lack ; that companies in the seed phase have the support they need ; and that companies in difficulty have the support and financing they need. And that’s until the seed stage is successfully completed. That’s why we’ve turned the project into a gas pedal incubator,

explains Patrice Yantho, CEO of JMJ Participation.

3D training opportunities

One of Cameroon’s major problems in attracting investment is the lack of qualified manpower. The Tech Park project aims to remedy this with its electrical engineering and industrial automation laboratory. In this environment, the emphasis is on reverse engineering, which has proved its worth in the West. It will enable project leaders to perform 3D modeling.

The technology that Dassault is making available to JFN will enable its new generation of students to gain a new insight into the notion of manufacturing. Instead of starting from the model to the part, we will start from the mechanical part to the model. This means that students will now understand in depth how to go from the part to the model. Once they’ve understood that, they’ll be able to improve on what already exists to produce something innovative,

explains Dr. Paul Dongmo, Director of the Electrical Engineering and Industrial Automation Laboratory at JFN.

Making Cameroon an entrepreneurial hub in Africa like Dassault, present in three African countries to date, many multinationals support the project. These include Google, Microsoft and others. Companies operating in the industrial sector are also on board. These global giants are willing to mentor young engineers. JMJ and JFN intend to leverage this ecosystem to offer startups privileged access to financing, strategic industrial partnerships and opportunities on international markets. These advantages will be guaranteed by the JFN label. Ultimately, this vision will make Cameroon a regional entrepreneurial hub.

Within the Tech Park, start-ups will be accommodated with all the infrastructure that this entails. They will benefit from the effective presence of both Cameroonian and foreign companies that are part of our ecosystem. For the first time, there will be a connection between companies and start-ups within the same space. They will benefit from their expertise and from the financing that JMJ will provide (…) our ambition is to train young people who will enter the job market either as employees or as entrepreneurs, thanks to the support we will be providing,

argues Alphonse Nafack, President of JFN Group.

The Accelerator Incubator is committed to promoting employment and socio-economic integration, one of the sustainable development objectives set out in Cameroon’s National Development Strategy 2030 (SND30). With only competent, dynamic young people as its weapons, the Accelerator Incubator aims to boost the Cameroonian economy and make it competitive at a time when Africa is opening up to itself with the Continental African Free Trade Area (CAFTA). By Aissatou Amirah and Gaitano Tsague