African textile digital printing Center

1) Kayes has the highest youth unemployment rate. 15-24 years' old women have no decent work due to illiteracy, early marriages, lack of decent infrastructure and qualified teachers. Women with a meager salary work in the dyeing industry, the second most polluting industry, without protection. This 2nd West-African cotton-growing country has only 2% of its 800 000 ton production being processed locally.

2) The creation of the first African production and training centre based on digital technologies for traditional loincloth will help relocate the industry. This pioneering project innovates in the way of producing but also of consuming the fabric, thanks to digital creativity.

3) Producing traditional loincloth digitally blends ICTs with education and vocational training offering decent and healthy creative skilled jobs to young girls. They will become economically autonomous and be recognized on the economic market. It greens the dyeing industry and improves health conditions and the environment.

Malian women aged 15 to 24 are unemployed :

• lack of education & vocational training (45%) and structures (2 vocational training centres for boys).

• In the craft sector, they work mainly in traditional dyeing (one of the most polluting industries worldwide), without protection, polluting aquifers and the Senegal River.

• The increase in global youth unemployment rate (22%) will be impacted by the COVID (ILO). 25.6 million new workers aged 15 to 29 will enter the labour market, mostly women in Africa.

Solution : 

• An ICT-integrated skills-based education and training for 345 girls the first year • Provide highly qualified jobs to ensure women financial independence • Digital creativity will innovate the production and consumption of loincloths • This high added value production will generate a new demand for wax equivalent loincloths. Cotton will be processed locally without the vagaries of world commodity prices (98% of cotton is woven and printed in Asia, while Mali is one of the first African producer countries).

• Zero carbon footprint (95% of the wax loincloth used in Africa are produced in Asia using conventional techniques). This green technology uses permanent cartridges with a pump. 

• Women are no longer exposed to effluents.

Digital textile printing consists of using an inkjet tracer designed for wide fabric rolls. The textile design is transferred directly in one-pass printing on fabrics from digital files. Thus, there is no more discharge of harmful effluent in the wild and significantly reduces personnel exposure to toxic hazards.

It allows the consumer to access new services in short circuit, such as the customization of his fabric, with the creation of a unique piece of fabric, with the interaction of the designer, the order even in very small quantities and an online payment when necessary. In this time of sanitary crisis, this solution presents a clear advantage. The printing is done in one pass and the production can potentially be delivered the same day. A concept in line with the lifestyle of the under-30, generations largely majority in the demography of Mali. With  2.000.000 of 15-24 years' old women in 2020, qualified jobs are economically vital.

Digitalization boosts creativity, allows any type of even for small series with an optimal quality result. It allies traditional African textile (especially wax) and new digital technologies. Its competitive advantages suggest that its development will be exponential, both at the artisanal and industrial level.

The target population for the first year is 65 young women aged 15 to 24 who have a qualified certificate and also 280 unqualified girls for courses with income generating activities who will work as a team.

The Centre will address the needs of the first group of girls by: 

• Initial training, with the introduction of ICT for education, training and entrepreneurship 

• learning and vocational pre-training, while developing a short marketing circuit in the inter-communality and the fabric Kayes Circle and other digitally printed media, respecting the new environmental and social standards. Every year, it aims at their qualification and professional integration as digital textile printing operators, fashion designers, marketing, IT, computer graphics designer, business management, logistics.

• continuing education to strengthen the skills of girls to make them competitive at local, regional and even national level;

• and the second group with income-generating activities (sewing, embroidery, sales).

• A survey has been undertaken to find out their wishes as far as Kayes where the Regional Chamber of Trade is willing to help us find the best applicants, especially that a sewing workshop exists and they have seen the synergy. They are supported by our Local Lied, a regional vocational specialist.

Without education good job opportunities fail to be found especially in untapped communities where girls and women are especially disadvantaged. Only those with the appropriate skills and means will access highly qualified jobs rendering them financially autonomous. By pooling their acquired skills they will form a production hub starting their own venture and giving them an easier access to capital and equipment. Orders and payment of the purchase orders being possibly placed either on line or by phone. 

Our Solution relates to the Learning for Girls and Women Challenge as a functional literacy course will be provided to enhance education.

Digital printing on textile is more than just a breakthrough in the world of textile printing; It is indeed a disruptive technology for this industry. Not because it is based on a new machine generation - digital instead of analogical - but because it's a revolution in terms of creating, producing, and consuming fabric. Digital technologies are going to impact textile printing industry as much as they did for media (music and imaging technology), data processing, and of course social networks. 

This technology is applied in Europe and some Asian countries, but unknown on the Western African market. It is innovative because it brings together the African textile tradition, with its creativity and uniqueness, and new digital technologies. They have already gained a foothold on the African continent, but in the field of information technologies. Our Solution is unique more especially in Mali, this second African cotton producing country that digital printing takes on its full meaning, where the government for more than 2 decades laments that only 2% of the cotton produced in Mali is locally processed. Thus, cotton and digital are the winning bet for young Malian women! Furthermore, it will boost the local economy while preserving the environment and the health of women working in the textile dying sector, the second craftwork for women. There is a training textile workshop in Segou with which a synergy will be established and developed. 

For thousands of years, in all civilizations and cultures, various kinds of fabrics have been used to produce clothes. This has always been a similar process, meaning that a design on a fabric was produced by closely pressing an ink-coated pattern on a fabric.

With digital printing, no physical contact any more, no need to produce a coated pattern: the original design is virtualized by the designer as a high resolution digital picture, all the creation process is made with just a touch pad and a monitor : printing becomes a one-step process, where the pigment is directly sprayed on the fabric by a large format/high speed/high resolution inkjet printer.

Digital printing on fabric has been used for more than 20 years, mainly in Europe, America, and to certain extent in Asia. Large global companies, specialized in graphic arts and imaging technologies, have been working hard on innovative solutions to adapt their equipment and consumables for printing on fabric. Even though not more than 5% of the worldwide printed fabric is digitally printed, there are now lots of printing companies using this technology, perhaps 20 or 30 of them in a country, such as France.  

Textile digital printing blends computing science to generate the design as a picture file, and high tech imaging equipment to spread ink drops, as tiny as 4 picoliters, on hundreds of square meters in just a few minutes. It can produce millions of different colors on a single piece of fabric. Chemical science is also part of the core of the technology, as requirements on inks and pigments used for printing on fabric must meet very high standards in terms of saturation, light fastness, washing ability, and of course whilst having hypoallergenic properties.

With textile digital printing, all the social, economic, cultural and environment framework will change. 

Without education and skills there can be no decent jobs for girls. They leave school early, some of them being married at the age of 12. Early pregnancies affect their health. They work mainly in agriculture for the sole benefit of the family, with no recognition and depending on their husbands' decisions even when they are the only ones to feed the family.

With highly qualified jobs offered by key specialists, girls will become financially autonomous and will choose their destiny in terms of marriage, children... They will boost their creativity around their cultural heritage with a modern approach. The entrepreneurship training will entice them to build their own start up, pooling their skills. They will thus mutualize their production and selling needs, mobilizing micro-finance and specialized organizations that support the youth. The girls having followed the literacy courses with income generating activities will be enticed, when working as a team, to enroll their children into school, especially girls. Illiteracy will thus be reduced. Their health will be preserved as they will work in a healthy environment. 

Mali's "white gold" - cotton - will no longer be delocalized 15 000 km away to Asia, but processed, ennobled, placed on the local market and consumed where it originated. Raw cotton will no longer be processed in the conventional textile printing industry, the second polluting industry after the oil industry. It will be processed in a clean and socially-responsible industry, based on a sustainable development approach. There will be a reduction in the CO2 effluent from export to/import from Asia and in pollution of the aquifers and rivers.

The whole region will benefit from the marketing, commercial, and logistics infrastructure for local and remote marketing of production (clothing and upholstery, and a wide array of applications : banners, posters, POS, canvas printing, etc.). This ecosystem will include creativity and communication by fostering expertise and the search for outlets (on-site sales and telesales). Trade with the neighboring countries (Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea and the Cote d'Ivoire) is also envisaged.

The Center is not created yet. The architectural study is underway. For the time being it will serve boys who will be trained for the construction following the technique of the Nubian vault. In one year it should be constructed and in 2 years' time we would start with close to 400 women who will qualify for a skilled job, notwithstanding the hundreds of loincloth and other garnment' saleswomen. In five years, the partnership with the textile training workshop based in Segou, we will add 300 women. Just a start which will make a drastic change in their lives! Their empowerment will gain them recognition, the capacity of deciding whether to marry and have children or not.

Our goals are that end of 2022 the Center will be launched and functional. The replication of emerging technologies is extremely rapid in Africa with its 200 Millions of 15-24 year old, of whom more than 50% are women. 60% of them are unemployed, a real threat ! The ILO, European Union, the World Bank, the UNFPA and the UNDP who are working on finding solutions to combat this scourge will be sollicited for a regional approach, through the Sahel Women's Empowerment and Demographic Dividend Initiative, thanks to our local Lead, who is the regional coordinator of this Program.

1) Financial barriers as with the COVID 19 it is more difficult to get a reply from the TFPs. Once the infrastructures are built, the government has shown interest in requesting grants from the World Bank for the equipment and from the UNDP for the training component of this project .

2) Technical barriers could be the lapse of time to receive the ink refills in case of lack of flights.

3) Legal barriers refer to the legal status of the Center.

4) For cultural barriers we might be considered as competitors against traditional dyeing.

5) On the market we might also be seen as competitors who will hinder their part of the market.

1)We have several tracks but although you do not provide support for further financing, your team might help us find private sponsors or donors for the infrastructures.

2) We have excellent local engineers (Training without Frontiers) who will 1) be trained on the machines and 2) who will train a technician to take care of the maintenance. Sufficient supplies will be bought in advance and placed in a cool place. The computers will be isolated thanks to the thick walls inherent of the Nubian vault technique, while the ink cartridges will be kept in a cold storage cabinet.

3) We have an African lawyer in our NGO who helps us set up the statute of this social and solidarity economy cooperative

4) Sensitization will be done on the hazards of traditional dyeing, especially for the young kids with their mums working in this field

5) The same campaign will be done on the advantages of digital textile printing on all media.

For the conception 2 members from CEPAZE and 2 members from the Koussané-Kafo Duutu Meetu (2KDM) NGO.

For the architectural study: 11 members from the A.F.O. Office

For the infrastructure construction: the AFO and the Kayes Workshop School.

For the equipment: CEPAZE

For the training of trainers: the head of Training Without Frontiers will be trained at the technology, and our Local Lied: 2 members of the SWEDD Initiative regional coordination, financed by the World Bank and ten trainers for the functional literacy courses with Income Generating Activities. 
10 members of  2KDM for the functioning of the Center.

CEPAZE Chief Lead, Philippe HERIVAN, has experience in these textile digital printers. He has set up and marketed a full range of inkjet professional equipment dedicated to the digital photo and graphic arts markets. These innovative products have been produced in China for almost 10 years, and he marketed them in Europe and Africa. He was in charge of sales and marketing, as well as technical issues. As the hard copy business in the photo market went down, due to the impact of social networks in this industry, he got in touch with inkjet manufacturers that invested a lot in R&D to adapt their large format printers and inks from paper media to textile media. Two of them became leading companies in this digital printing on fabric: DGen in South Korea and Impression Technology Pty Ltd in Australia.

Personally, I have experience in setting up projects and seeking donors.

Alain SOSSAH, the head of the Training Without Frontiers (FSF) NGO is well known in the sub-region as a key trainer, with mobile teams.

Dadio KONARE, Chair of the Support of Rural Development Actions NGO (ADR) is well recognized by the Government and the Sahel Women Empowerment Demographic Dividend Initiative as Regional Coordinator. This program is financed by the World Bank and UNFPA centers on innovative jobs for the empowerment of women.

DGen in South Korea and Impression Technology Pty Ltd in Australia now have affiliates in France (namely MULTIGRAPHIC in Nanterre and HUCAM in Roanne with whom Philippe is associated.

With a production cost of 9$ for 6 yards of loincloth, the sales price will be 33$, i.e. a 24$ benefit.

Our key customers: 

158 100 school children and vocational students for the printing of logos on school suits and blouses

500 women associations for social ceremonies' attire

50 saleswomen for loincloths 

20 cleaning and services EIG for the printing of working clothes

200 sports clubs for the printing of shorts, jerseys, kimonos

20 NGOs and 30 small enterprises for the printing of advertising material, 

4 gold mines and 4 cement factories for the printing of working suits and blouses

The Kayes city hall and 9 municipalities for the priiting of loincloths and banners.

Competition in clothing appearance is very important in Africa, especially among women, even when they have very little to eat. They are the ones who buy the clothes for the children and for themselves from the small gardening or craft activities they have. 

This Center will have the statute of a social and solidarity enterprise whose benefits will be completely reinvested into the Center, both in terms of Human Resources and Equipment. The benefits will be generated by the sale of the products and by fees for the girls following the courses, and for the boarding school.

We would like to receive mentorship and strategic advice, together with support from your community of peers, specific funders, and experts to advance our innovative work so that it can be implemented without delay for the greatest benefit of Malian young women. 

So as to accelerate the outreach process, you could help giving more publicity to the objectives of the project, either directly to the World Bank, European Union and UNDP by supporting our Solution which is in line with their own goals of youth vocational integration.

Advice is always welcome too!

We would greatly appreciate having support for a more detailed market survey than the one we have and for a revised business plan.

It would be good to have a more direct contact with the above-mentioned funders as though generally they are approached by their local antennas. 

Our Solution targets very precisely skilled jobs for women with inclusive entrepreneurship training. A shared organization by a CLE International trainer for a balance between a wide variety of topics combining didactics and technique, the alternation of classrooms and online exchanges. Girls who will have taken CLE training will take a positive approach to entrepreneurship and be more motivated to start their own business, either individually or as a start up joining their competencies and mutualizing efforts for capital earning, micro-financing and buying of equipment. The unemployment of young women will be reduced because they will increase their employability for paid employment.

If we win the GM Prize on Good Jobs and Inclusive Entrepreneurship that will greatly advance us in the timing for the construction of the infrastructures.