While global tech narratives often focus on scaling Silicon Valley blueprints, a more pragmatic and collaborative dynamic is taking root across Africa. The continent is forging its own innovation paradigm—one measured not by mere technological replication, but by solving local problems and boosting economic competitiveness. At the forefront of this shift is Tunisia, transforming from a startup producer into a structured laboratory for continent-wide co-innovation.
This African model redefines traditional roles: startups as solvers of concrete industrial challenges, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) leveraging innovation for growth, and the state acting as a facilitator. The engine of this system is open innovation—connecting the unmet needs of established businesses and public institutions with the agile technological solutions of startups.
For many African SMEs, hindered by long R&D cycles, limited budgets, and skills gaps, this approach is a strategic lifeline. It offers access to tested technologies, enables rapid piloting, shares costs and risks, and fosters win-win collaborations across the ecosystem.
A Ecosystem Validated by Investment
The viability of this model is gaining financial validation. African startups raised over $3 billion in 2025, with a notable 78% increase in the first half of the year compared to 2024. Significant funding is flowing into clean tech, AI, and digital solutions—sectors ripe for startup-corporate synergy.
Tunisia’s Structured Experiment
Tunisia is actively engineering this collaborative future. Initiatives like GIZ Tunisia’s platform are key, deliberately assembling industrial companies, tech startups, consultancies like Deloitte, public actors, and investors. The goal is to translate innovation into measurable value. Following the successful AI RISE program launched in 2023, a 2025 edition is now targeting Industry 4.0 and applied AI.
However, a fundamental hurdle persists: the language gap between problem-holders and solution-builders.
“Startups know what they can do — but SMEs do not always know what to ask for,” notes Aicha Mezghani, Senior Manager at Deloitte. This disconnect is a continent-wide challenge, often exacerbated by the absence of formal innovation or digital strategies within smaller firms.
“It’s not that the solution isn’t good — it’s that the company and the startup don’t speak the same language,” explains Hatem Haddad, President of Entrepreneurs Without Borders.
Tunisian-led initiatives are building the necessary bridges. Organizations like Open Startup Africa (OST) are creating reproducible collaboration frameworks and forging international links, such as a strategic partnership with France’s Bpifrance.
“This partnership… is a mission to help write a new story for Africa and its innovators,” says Houda Ghozzi, founder of Open Startup.
Yet, as Hichem Abdennadher, Component Head for Industry 4.0 and AI at GIZ Tunisia, observes, scaling the model requires a robust industrial fabric—a variable reality across the continent. “In Sub-Saharan Africa, the situation is more complex, as the industrial fabric remains limited beyond a few large groups.”
The emerging consensus is that Africa is no longer in a race to catch up. Through pragmatic, inclusive models being refined in hubs like Tunisia, the continent is building a unique innovation blueprint—one the world is beginning to watch, and from which it may soon learn.
TunisianMonitorOnline (BRC)
