It's SINGA's birthday today: we are officially 10 years old. An opportunity to thank you for the incredible support you have given to this organization, its teams, and its mission.
I don't have time to write you a nice article to review the decade and look forward to the future. We are too busy with the war in Ukraine.
In 10 years, SINGA has become an international organization, present in 7 countries (Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, Switzerland) with a hundred employees and tens of thousands of members. It is an ecosystem that brings together entrepreneurs, citizens, companies, and public actors to reinvent the integration of refugees and migrants.
I would like to tell you how it all started...
In 2011, I was returning from Australia and Nathanael Molle was coming back from Morocco. We had both worked for a year in legal aid for refugees. We were struck by the number of entrepreneurs among the Newcomers and by the lack of links with the local populations in both countries.
Between 2005 and 2010, we had studied international trade, international law, and international security. We had a clear understanding of the events, dynamics, and people responsible for the world order and why public discourses sought to reinforce the distance between groups of different nationalities.
However, we had also grown up with the Internet, which gave us access to communities of interest around the world. On a daily basis, our identity evolved through cross-cultural exchanges and our sense of belonging extended beyond borders. Especially since we had been fortunate enough to live and work in dozens of countries.
Finally, we felt a common destiny for all humanity undergoing the same climate change. In Australia, I was writing my dissertation on environmental law inspired by indigenous peoples and, starting in 2013, I published a series of articles on environment-related migrations and climate refugees.
It is with this matrix, transnational bonds and planetary boundaries, that we launched SINGA. It was not about being a "refugee aid association" but a global community of men and women, citizens of the world who help each other and co-create the future.
We used the new powers, a term dear to Alice Barbe who joined us in 2013, to mobilize and partner with collectives from the fields of entrepreneurship, tech, health, sports, fashion, video games and many others. Our peer-to-peer approach has helped expand the scope of conversations.
Through thousands of events, on 3 continents, we offered our members to listen to music, create digital solutions, play soccer, cook, play cards or even learn languages. In 2015, we notably invented CALM: a platform for hosting refugees in their homes.
Then we spread this culture through conferences, media and our programs. Soon we saw projects in catering, in sports, in education, in housing all over Europe. An ecosystem emerged in which immigrants could more easily reveal their potential, local people could feel useful, learn and innovate.
SINGA is the first incubator network in Europe for immigrant and refugee entrepreneurs. Since 2016, we have accompanied +1000 entrepreneurs in Paris, Lyon, Nantes, Lille, Barcelona, Stuttgart, Berlin, Geneva and Zurich. Soon in Strasbourg, Rome and Marseille.
We also support entrepreneurs who aim to have a positive impact on international mobility and inclusion. They improve access to housing, education, health, employment and all the commons of society.
All these entrepreneurs, 50% of whom are women, create businesses, associations, jobs and social cohesion. For many refugees and immigrants, entrepreneurship is also a way to get around social and professional downgrading. To show who they really are.
In the United States, 55% of unicorns (companies valued at more than 1 billion dollars) have at least one immigrant partner. Immigrant and refugee entrepreneurs are also an opportunity for European economies. They contribute significantly to public finances, employment and innovation in the countries where they settle. They push back the frontiers of local knowledge.