A new chapter
Today, we are launching our new site.
It would be easy to see this as a mere technical milestone. For us, it is something else. It is a human milestone.
IKOUĒ is, first and foremost, people: talent, entrepreneurs, a diaspora and businesses brought together around a tech ecosystem serving Central Africa’s development.
It all started in an amphitheatre
In late 2023, in the amphitheatre of the Institut Pasteur de Bangui, we had few resources but one clear conviction.
A vision to defend. A borrowed room. A few people willing to listen. And the search for our very first partners.
A little over two years later, the road travelled has taken a far more visible shape. We have gone from a borrowed room to hands-on partnerships with the Institut Pasteur de Bangui, the Office National d’Informatique, the Ministry of Finance and Budget, and the CCIS. In 2025, the Central African Government also entrusted us with the entire digital apparatus of the African Caucus, the meeting of the African Governors of the IMF and the World Bank in Bangui: proof that Central African talent can carry the continent’s major events.
In between, there were training courses, a first cohort, entrepreneurs supported, discussions that were sometimes long, necessary adjustments, and bridges gradually built between the diaspora and the country.
Above all, there were people.
Our course, for its part, has stayed the same: to put technology at the service of the development of the Central African Republic, to train talent, to support entrepreneurs, and to create useful links between the diaspora, institutions, businesses and the country.
What has changed is not our ambition. It is our ability to organise it better, to explain it better, and to carry it out better.
What this site really tells
This new site is not just a showcase. It is the reflection of a stage of maturity.
It brings together what we have learned, what we are building, and the way we want to move forward. Every page says something about how we have grown: more clarity, more method, more responsibility.
But this site is also a testimony.
A testimony to those who trusted us before anything was established. The partners who opened their doors. The first learners who took the bet. The entrepreneurs who agreed to be supported. The members of the diaspora who believed a more useful link with the country was possible.
They are the ones who made all of this possible.
2026, a year of moving into action
For IKOUĒ, 2026 marks a turning point.
Part of what we long described as an ambition is now entering a more concrete phase. Ideas become programmes. Programmes become places, platforms, projects, cohorts.
Our project comes down to three simple gestures: train, support, connect.
These three gestures have shaped our work from the very beginning. This year, each of them reaches a new stage.
Train
Scattered talent, brought together in a shared learning dynamic: that is the purpose of IKOUĒ Academy.
In October, our very first cohort will graduate. We cannot wait to introduce those who make it up, their journeys, their faces and the work they have accomplished.
Discover the first IKOUĒ Academy cohort
But training cannot rest on individual motivation alone. Too much talent is still held back by very concrete obstacles: the lack of equipment, an unstable power supply, an inadequate workspace, or simply the absence of a steady setting in which to learn.
That is what the IKOUĒ Centres will address: creating spaces where talent can train in better conditions, with the right tools, structured guidance and an environment that helps people move forward.
Support
Entrepreneurial paths that are often isolated, brought together into a more structured trajectory: that is the role of IKOUĒ Factory.
In October, Louma, our very first incubated project, enters a new phase. Unveiled at IDC24, it is now ready to go further.
It is above all a useful proof: it is possible to support projects from within the Central African Republic with method, rigour and ambition, without cutting them off from their local reality.
The Factory is already preparing its next cohort, for entrepreneurs who want to build from the Central African Republic, with a framework, support and a clear vision of what they are setting out to create.
Connect
A diaspora ready to invest and entrepreneurs seeking funding, brought together at last around a trusted portal: that is the promise of IKOUĒ Connect.
IKOUĒ Connect is a funding platform: a secure portal where the diaspora and investors discover vetted Central African projects, back them or invest in them, then track the impact generated on the ground.
The platform will open in October 2026. Its aim is simple: to turn the wish to help the country into concrete investment, in a few clear and secure steps.
We believe the diaspora can play an important role in the country’s development. But that role cannot stay abstract: it has to be organised around real projects, mechanisms of trust, and capital that finally finds where to go.
That is what we want to build with IKOUĒ Connect.
Those who build with us
None of this would hold together without our partners.
The institutions, businesses, teams and people who trust us are an essential part of it.
They give their time. They commit their teams. They agree to build with us, sometimes in complex contexts, with seriousness and patience.
This chapter is therefore as much theirs as it is ours.
Proud, and clear-eyed
We are proud of the road travelled.
We are, because that road demanded time, energy, steadiness and a great deal of quiet work.
But we remain clear-eyed about what is left to do. The launch of this site is not a finish line. It is a clearer foundation for what comes next.
A base from which to present our work better, to welcome those who want to join us better, and to build the next steps better.
To those who have walked with us this far: thank you.
To those discovering us today: welcome.
What comes next, we want to build with seriousness, with patience, and with all those who believe that technology can become a concrete lever for the Central African Republic.