University Mohammed VI Polytechnic (UM6P), Morocco’s leading science and innovation institution, has inaugurated its first branch in the United States, creating a new bridge between African and American innovation ecosystems.
The UM6P Global Hub, with offices in New York and Cambridge, was officially launched on September 8, 2025. The event drew senior Moroccan diplomats, including Youssef Amrani, Morocco’s ambassador to the U.S., and Omar Hilale, Morocco’s permanent representative to the United Nations — highlighting the initiative’s geopolitical significance.
Unlike traditional overseas campuses that focus primarily on exporting education, UM6P’s U.S. hub is designed as a two-way innovation corridor. It will facilitate joint research, student and faculty exchanges, and entrepreneurial partnerships, while linking African start-ups to North American venture capital, technology networks, and industry expertise. At the same time, it will help adapt American technological advances to African contexts.
“We aim to position African science and entrepreneurship within global circuits, not on the periphery of them,” said Mehdi El Khatib, managing director of the UM6P Global Hub U.S. “We want African students, researchers, and entrepreneurs to be co-creators of solutions to the world’s challenges, not just recipients of imported ideas.”
Since its founding in 2017, UM6P has rapidly expanded into a continental powerhouse, hosting nearly 7,300 students from 40 countries — including 1,000 doctoral candidates, 80% of whom are on scholarships. The university has forged more than 200 partnerships with top institutions such as MIT, Stanford, Columbia Business School, and Arizona State University, while its entrepreneurial programs have supported over 1,000 founders and innovators.
Building on this foundation, the U.S. hub seeks to address three persistent challenges in Africa’s innovation landscape: limited global visibility of African research, underutilised diaspora talent in North America, and the difficulty of adapting global technologies to African needs.
UM6P President Said Hicham El Habti described the move as part of Morocco’s broader ambition to become Africa’s anchor for research and technology investment. “The goal of this new hub is to directly address Morocco’s and Africa’s urgent challenges by combining rigorous scientific research with practical, scalable solutions,” he said. “This is about building technological sovereignty.”
The U.S. hub expands UM6P’s international footprint, which already includes partnerships and operations in Canada and France. Analysts say the true test will be turning the symbolic milestone into measurable results — patents, start-ups, scalable technologies, and skilled jobs that can transform Africa’s position in the global knowledge economy.
Article by RB Correspondent
Photo/Google
Comment