The talented and passionate entrepreneur leverages his IT expertise to support local entrepreneurs and help them succeed.

Abdelsalam Safi (photo) is a Chadian social and tech entrepreneur. He is one of the co-founders and CEO of WenakLabs, the first startup incubator in Chad.

His incubator, founded in 2014, claims to be both a media lab and a tech hub that aims to help bridge the digital divide and promote tech entrepreneurship by all means. It also defines itself as a "space of collective intelligence and social innovation" that "defend a horizontal and transparent way of working."

Last January 18, it inaugurated its media lab, which is equipped with all the professional tools that can facilitate audiovisual and digital works and get training in related professions. Some of its equipment enables photo and video shooting, graphic designing, and the production of web TV shows.

" Our media lab is an interdisciplinary research lab where researchers, artists, designers, etc. can work together to leverage ICT potentials to solve problems and identify new opportunities", explained Abdelsalam Safi.

Since February 2020, the tech entrepreneur is the country director of the Chadian chapter of the American business incubator Founder Institute. Since 2006, he is also a member of the nonprofit organization Free Software Foundation.

His professional career began in 2012 when he started teaching system and network administration at the Chadian private school IPNT (Institut Polytechnique de nouvelles technologies). About a year later, he also started teaching Java object-oriented programming at the University Institute of Sciences and Technology of Abeche.

Melchior Koba