Ahmini, the new social connection

AHMINI is a platform that facilitates access to social security and financial coverage, serving as a bridge between rural women and the National Social Security Fund. 
Easy affiliation process, remote payment procedure and accessible healthcare services are what we offer to every rural women instead of the long and costly administrative procedures. 

The lack of appropriate legislation, low income and long also costly administrative procedures are the hardships holding back rural women from having social security.

In Tunisia, 90 % is the average of rural women living with no health coverage, 1100 women are diagnosed with cancer every year and 8 % of them succumb to the illness and fall victim of the deeply flawed social coverage system. 

In one hand, rural women, which most of them are informal sector workers, are exposed to a lot of dangers and deprived of their right to be socially covered. On the other hand, insurance companies lost these women as potential clients, thanks to whom they can be beneficiary.

Our target customers are women unable to access the social security system, whether it is because of the lack of appropriate legislation for their situation, their low income or the long and complicated administrative procedures. In Tunisia, we target 500 000 rural women who are informal sector workers and therefore not eligible to have social security.These women are exposed to a lot of dangers from work accidents to road accidents, so a solution to their situation is an emergency. To introduce our idea, we start with awareness campaigns and then we present the impact of our solution. Since day one, we have been welcomed with warm hearts full of hope and gratitude.With our solution, rural women no longer have to go downtown to pay their fees, since our team take in charge all the affiliation process, which became via our platform. Ahmini changed the national law, so every woman have the right to be affiliated in the social security system even if her work conditions is unstable. Our solution made the payment process easy and affordable. Since the payment is now done through mobile phone, fees reduced to the minimum and the payment period is flexible (daily, weekly or monthly)

Ahmini is an innovative solution increasing inclusion and access to digital platforms. We facilitate portable contributions to social insurance programs, such as pensions and savings accounts, by informal sector workers. Women we target, in the informal sector, often fall through the cracks of existing social security systems and are ineligible for social insurance programs mandated for the formal sector. Ahmini relates perfectly to this Mission, we provide accessible and responsive solution to the needs of vulnerable women, we promote the continuity of contributions to social insurance schemes from informal sector workers by an accessible affiliation, easy payment and affordable fees.

The solution that we found is innovative in its simple, easy and affordable process. Ahmini facilitates the access to social security, it offers an accessible service sparing women the costs of transportation and the long administrative procedures. It facilitates the payment of the monthly fees, by fragmenting the amount into small pieces that can be paid daily, weekly or monthly. And it also provides women suffering from extreme poverty with a global organizations taking them in charge. 

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The change that our initiative has brought is tremendous, the hope that we brought back to these people, the security that we offered to these families, the feeling of safety we're spreading when women took back their rights in healthcare and pensions. This project gave back women their dignity and emancipating. Now, rural women are enjoying their rights, their freedom and most of all their belonging to society.

Ahmini is already a tech-based, user-centric solution, incorporated into social protection and public service delivery systems at the regional level. Ahmini is transferable to West Africa, since the region is also in need of solutions providing social protection and access to public services especially to informal sector workers. As in Tunisia, in West Africa, we are willing to help informal sector workers have a social protection ans easy access to public services through our digital platform. We already received encouragements from a lot of west african investors. They provided us with informations about the west african market that helped us develop an idea on how we will be operating in the region. Our final goal is make sure that all informal sector workers have social protection and access to public services through our digital platform guaranteeing easy process and affordable fees.

Our solution will be used by informal sector workers through our team. Ahmini team will be in charge of the affiliation process to make sure that even people unable to use technology are also taken in charge. We established a good structure of team management that makes the affiliation process easy, fast and affordable for the company. As for the payment process, it will be remotely so workers won't have to take a dayoff to pay their fees. It can be done through their mobile phone. To do so, we are willing to create our own ecosystem compsed of our company and partners to ensure an easy access to social protection that meets all the needs of informal sector workers.

Our solution will be API-enabled and will allow other organizations to pull data required for background checks, income verification, social insurance... We will follow all appropriate data privacy laws including GDPR.

Our solution is composed of two phases: The first is the affiliation. This phase needs Internet connection, but it will be done by Ahmini team. So we provide Internet connection to accomplish the affiliation process. The second is the payment process. This phase doesn't need an Internet connection, only an ordinary mobile phone so they can compose their phone number combined with their registration number given once they're affiliated. Even if some of them don't have an ordinary mobile phone, in each county we put a point of contact (a supermarket worker, a shop worker..) to do the work on their belhaf they only need to give him/her their phone number and their registration number. In both phases, our solution account for low connectivity environments and for users with low literacy and numeracy levels.

Our target in Tunisia is 500 000 woman

We already serve 15 000 woman

In one year, we will be serving 150 000 woman

In five years, we be achieved 500 000 woman in Tunisia and serving other targeted people in West Africa ( up to 25 000 people)

Our goal for next year is to achieve our target in Tunisia and spread hope and security in these areas. But in five years we are looking to create a safe, reliable and easily reached social security system to everyone in need. To be the inspiration for youth, hope for a change, hope for evolution and prosperity. A spark of belief in solidarity,  we are aiming to look after marginalized women and children all over the world. To make others believe in justice and be engaged in ensuring peace and safety. In five years we will be operating in West Africa and have the chance to save millions of lives.

Achieving our 5-year goal of socially protecting over 1M people globally requires a major capital infusion and global partnerships, that will allow us to conduct plenty of market research and have an easier access to these markets.

In order to overcome these obstacles we are planning to participate in several international competitions and exhibitions so we can promote our company internationally and have the chance to meet a lot of foreign investors and potential partners willing to help us achieve our goals.

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Full-team staff: 8

Part-team staff: 10

Volunteers: 100 (food and transport on Ahmini)

Meher Khelifi, CEO of the company, has founded at the age of 31 ‘’Ahmini’’. But during his 31 years, he struggled a lot and went through a lot. His life conditions were so difficult that seemed almost impossible to endure. He lived in a rural area, his parents didn’t have a stable revenue, low income and so no social security to protect them from sickness. He haven’t thought a second of becoming an entrepreneur, until his mother had cancer, and passed away after a long fight. A fight that she had alone, with no social security and no access to healthcare. That day his life have changed, and he swore that he will make our system better for her sake. And that's how his journey has begun. All the team is motivated, including ourselves, we always remind ourselves that is no matter how difficult the change seems to be, there is always a way to achieve it. Especially a change for neglected people, deprived from their rights, exposed to dangers and dying from diseases. We keep in head how our initiative drew inspiration for tunisian youth, hope for a change, hope for evolution and prosperity. We inspired people to believe in their ideas and turn them into a successful project. We inspired people to help others, to look after marginalized women and children. To believe in justice and ensure peace and safety. We just focus on our goals, have the same vision, and hold tight to our belief in success.

We are partnering with Sanofi, we are working together in raising awareness in rural areas on how social protection is important and how it is used to ensure a better access to health care. They help us to conduct foreign market research (Moroccan market recently) and a ensure a better access to international markets through other introducing us to international partners willing to develop the solution in different countries.

Ahmini targets rural women all over Tunisia, we reach them through our ambassadors. We take their coordinates and we transfer them to the national social security fund through our platform. Once they're affiliated in the social security system, they will receive a registration number giving them access to mobile payment (to pay their fees remotely) and a care book to have access to healthcare services (Hospitals and medicine) in exchange of a monthly fee paid to the social security fund, of which we take 1% as a commission to the platform. That way, we spare women of all the hardships, and the long and costly administrative procedures and we offer them affordable fees (6$ per month).

Ahmini makes money by taking 1% of each monthly transaction (from the monthly fees) as a comission. Monthly fees are at 6$ per woman, so our comission is 0.06$ per woman. In Tunisia, we target 500 000 rural women, which will lead to a revenue of 30 000 $ per Month once the number is achieved. We are funding our project with competitions' prizes and raising investment capital.

Investment capital: 110 132 USD (SIM SICAR, Personal funding..)

Competitions' prizes: 30 000 USD (Harvard Business school competition, MIT beirut competition,..)

If possible we are looking to raise 50 000 USD of funds as grants by the end of 2021. But most importantly we are looking for international partnerships more than funding.

40 000 USD

We are in need of networking opportunities to connect with potential partners, visibility to promote our project internationally and grant funding. We believe that the Mission Billion Challenge WURI West Africa Prize is a great opportunity for Ahmini to gain more solid backup to a better international expansion.

With our partners, we aim to conduct market research on the new targeted markets, so we can identify where exactly to start operating. Then to do a lot of field work, to explore the market, be present in local exhibitions to meet with local competitors if there is any or investors.. Start the platform trial in different areas in the country, raise awareness campaigns... Partnerships will also help us develop our international marketing and communication strategies, which need to be intensive and well conducted.

We are open to all partnership that is willing to help us expand our activity and gain more expertise and facility with their presence as a partner. For example, locally we are partnering with The World Bank Group, and this partnership helped us a lot to develop our activity and be more solid.