Kathya Berrada wins Atlas Network's 2025 Africa Smart Bets Pitch Competition

A panel of judges at Atlas Network's Africa Liberty Forum 2025 chose Kathya Berrada of Morocco-based organization Arab Center for Research as the winner of the Africa Smart Bets semi-final pitch competition and its US$65,000 prize. As a winner of this regional competition, she will also have the opportunity to deliver her pitch in New York City at Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner for a chance to win an additional US$50,000 prize.

Kathya pitched her organization's plan to launch the innovative “Free Market Policy Bootcamp” program across universities in North Africa and East Africa. The initiative aims to address the challenges faced by a young population with unmet economic aspirations in a region where centralized economic systems have stifled innovation and private enterprise.

“The Arab world is home to a powerful untapped force, a generation of ambitious, connected, and restless youth who are seeking a new path; one that offers dignity, opportunity, and freedom,” Kathya explained in her pitch. “For decades, centralized economic systems and stagnant public policy have stifled innovation, discouraged private enterprise, and failed to deliver on the promise of prosperity.”

Starting in five universities and expanding to fifteen, the bootcamp will equip students with a clear understanding of free-market principles and public policy while empowering them to challenge the status quo.

A Decade of Promoting Liberty in the Arab World

Founded as “the first liberal think tank in the Arab world and the first in Morocco,” the Arab Center for Research has been promoting free-market ideas across the Middle East and North Africa region for over a decade. Their flagship program, the Arab Liberty Festival, has been running continuously for nearly ten years.

“The Arab Liberty Festival, which is a unique initiative in the Arab world with a unique space for liberal champions to meet...[is] providing a space pretty much similar and very much inspired by Atlas Network Liberty Forums throughout the world,” Kathya explained. “The idea is to provide a space for different liberal champions across the region to meet together, which is already a big thing in the region with a lot of restrictions and authoritarian rules.”

Despite the challenges of operating in a region affected by armed conflicts, Kathya remains hopeful about the future, drawing inspiration from the entrepreneurial spirit of youth in the region.

“The youth are really a source of inspiration for all of us in the region because it doesn't matter their ideological orientation, they are entrepreneurial by nature,” she shared. “They are redefining and reinventing the spirit and innovation... [T]hey would come up with free markets, innovative solutions to their local development issues. And the way they do it is so exceptional that whenever we get them on stage and we get them to present their projects, we just tell them, ‘You are free-marketers, without ever knowing that, without ever realizing that.’”

This spirit of innovation is what the Free Market Policy Bootcamp aims to harness, creating what Kathya describes as “a launchpad for a new generation of thinkers, entrepreneurs, and reformers who believe in the power of markets, the dignity of work, and the right of individuals to shape their economic future.”

The Arab Center for Research has identified a strategic opportunity to capitalize on shifting regional political economies, with Gulf countries increasingly investing in entrepreneurship and market liberalization while more fragile economies in the Middle East-North Africa region need homegrown solutions. Their bootcamp will serve as a launchpad for a new generation of thinkers, entrepreneurs, and reformers who believe in the power of markets, the dignity of work, and the right of individuals to shape their economic future.

Atlas Network's Coach, Compete, Celebrate! model is on full display at each of our four Regional Liberty Forums, through the Smart Bets semi-final pitch competition. In this event, three pre-selected Atlas Network partner organizations take the stage to pitch a panel of judges on why they should be a part of the next Smart Bets cohort gaining access to unique opportunities to accelerate their work and the winner of a $40,000 grant and an additional $25,000 matching grant.

Winners also have the opportunity to pitch on stage at Atlas Network's Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner in New York City for the chance to win an additional $50,000 prize.

Visit AtlasNetwork.org/Events to find out more about events in your region.