Interview with architect Michael Schwarz |18 November 2021
Michael Schwarz
‘The biggest asset of Seychelles is its young people’
Michael Schwarz is a German architect who settled in Seychelles in 2016. Prior to his arrival in Seychelles he lived in Dubai for 15 years, running together with his partner a consultancy for architecture and engineering, and was teaching as a university professor in the Emirates and visiting professor in Shanghai, China.
He presented his research on sustainable urban developments and his work worldwide to governments, universities, think tanks and companies like ‘Procter and Gamble’, ‘Wella’, ‘Renault’, ‘3M’ and others. In Seychelles, he holds licenses as architect and engineer since 2018 and runs his consultancy in North East Point. His most actual project is a ‘business incubator’ in Seychelles. The research for this project was financed by the European Union, represented by GOPA Germany under the ‘Economic Partnership Agreement implementation in Seychelles’ Programme. Cooperation with the Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) was part of the assignment. At the moment his research is focusing on the future of tourism in Seychelles.
Seychelles NATION: Michael, let us start with the most important question: What is a business incubator and why in Seychelles?
Michael Schwarz: A business incubator is an organisation that helps startups, companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a full-scale range of services starting with management office space, management training and ending with venture capital financing. It’s a catalyst tool for either regional or national economic development. This means that a business incubator rents out offices or labs to start-ups for a rent which is far below the average market price for such facilities and provides hands on support. The business Incubator Seychelles will focus on IT- technology, green technology and cultural output to international markets.
The incubator will support the future development of Seychelles by motivating especially young people to establish their own company. Against the background of the actual challenges we consider it is the right time to start with such a project to diversify the economy more, increase the export rate and create jobs. The incubator will impact the private and public sector as well by developing innovative products for the sake of the country.
Seychelles NATION: Can you be a bit more precise on the programme?
Michael Schwarz: Let’s take for example the field of green technology. This technology gets more and more advanced. High tech applications are developed worldwide. In Seychelles we are talking more or less about solar power and putting such panels on the roof of houses. This can only be a first step in the right direction. But such technique is very old, its first application dates back to 1954, it’s older than 65 years. For sure the technique got more advanced and efficient over the years. Nevertheless it’s a very old one. I still see unused resources in this technique especially in Seychelles which have to be worked out. Several research shows the importance of solar technology until 2050 with photovoltaics and solar thermal. But: The solar industry from its relatively tiny current scale may produce changes we do not pretend to be able to foresee today. We recognise that future solar deployment will depend heavily on uncertain future market conditions and public policies ‒ including but not limited to policies aimed at mitigating global climate change. Technological answers to these questions and its implementation could be given in the Incubator. The startups will look as well into other fields of alternative energy production like biomass energy, tidal and wave energy or offshore wind kites to name a few.
The incubator will furthermore provide in a second building a vertical farming lab which spans over three levels. In this lab alternatives to traditional farming will be applied and developed which are more efficient and need less natural resources compared with the traditional agricultural Industry. Vertical farming will be the next step to food security for Seychelles. Its production is effective, its products healthy and reasonably priced.
We have very talented young people in the field of music, art and design. In the incubator we will filter from this pool the best and give them access to international markets. A recording studio is part of the incubator.
In fashion young people will develop their own fashion brands in the incubator. The brands will export the lifestyle of the islands into the world. Modern, ecological, light and exclusive will be the buzzwords for the successful brands. The international fashion market and the sale of its products turned in the last years to a very challenging one. Huge fashion companies worldwide are in serious trouble inter alia to change their policies from shop-based sale to online-based sale or to provide individuality with their products. The international competition in this industry is very tough and brands must get very innovative to survive. Just have a look on the new strategies from brands like Hilfiger for example with their ‘Fashion Frontier Challenge’ or Nike with its campaign ‘For once, Don’t Do It’.
Seychelles is considered a luxury and unique destination. The startups will use this image with its design and production of fashion elements. ‘Made in Seychelles’ will be a unique selling point. It will fall into a time where ‘Inclusivity’ and ‘Hyper-Personalisation’ are keywords for this Industry.
Seychelles NATION: ‘Inclusivity’, ‘Hyper-Personalisation’?
Michael Schwarz: According, to data 47% of New York’s recent fashion week models consist of coloured people, while black and minority groups only make up less than 5% of the creative industry worldwide. The industry understood that this has to be changed in the future. With the help and cooperation of incubator based IT-technology startups, artificial intelligence can be used to quickly adapt to the constantly changing consumer behaviour and make accurate predictions on future trends and desires. The synergy effects in the incubator cannot be estimated high enough. Imagine a fashion brand is launched by a fashion startup. The IT-technologists support the marketing of the products, the trailer of the launch is accompanied by music from a music startup, the seriousness of the product is proven by green-technology startups, photos and videos are taken by startups in this field. All established in the incubator.
Seychelles NATION: Can we understand the incubator as a kind of academic institution?
Michael Schwarz: No. The incubator will be the interface between academia and practice. Whenever necessary the work will be based on existing research. But it will clearly focus on the implementation of products and the product as such. For sure this will need sometimes own research as well.
Seychelles NATION: But if it’s not an academic institution, how do the startups get all the information to establish a successful company in terms of administration and product?
Michael Schwarz: The incubator has a network of people from the private and public sector, from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and individual professionals. These people will support the incubator by sharing their experience with the startups in lectures and seminars. Be it administrative, legal, marketing or production. Furthermore we established a network with other incubators in Silicon Valley/USA, Berlin and Mannheim/Germany as well as in Chennai/India to exchange thoughts and ideas. Nowadays networking is key.
Seychelles NATION: How can people apply?
Michael Schwarz: The process is very straight forward. Interested startups send a short paper introducing their idea. A committee of the incubator will then look at the application and shortlist promising candidates. Candidates then are invited for an Interview to pitch their ideas in a short presentation of 10 to 15 minutes. Finally the successful candidates will receive an offer from the committee. The maximum duration in the incubator is limited to three years. After each year the startups have to present their progress in a public event. Those which are not showing convincing progress have to leave the incubator and will be replaced by another startup. The others will move to year two respectively year three. Those which will enter year three get introduced to venture capitalists, business angels, and industry, bank loans or governmental grants. The investor will get the chance to negotiate the participation in the startup by getting a shareholder. National investors will enjoy priority. At each stage the use of drugs in the Incubator will lead to the immediate termination of the contract between the incubator and the startup. The startup has to leave the incubator within 48 hours in such case.
Seychelles NATION: We are sure you expected the next question. How will the implementation of the business incubator Seychelles be financed? Construction, furniture, infrastructure will cost a reasonable amount of money.
Michael Schwarz:Without question we will need an investor or a consortium of investors. The project is not the dream of the usual investor who expects his return on investment (ROI) in not more than eight years. Our business plan and conservative financial forecast shows an ROI of 15 years. The investment is more about the one in a social project for the sake of the country and not the one to make quick returns. I don’t say it’s a charity project, but the investor must be ready and willing to support the future of the country and especially the young generation which is the biggest asset of Seychelles. At the same time he can financially participate from the beginning in the expected success of promising startups and participate in their future success. I think this could be a more than reasonable motivation for potential investors.
The youth in Seychelles has the same potential like those in other countries, not less, not more. They have their dreams, their ideas and their personal perception how their life should be. It’s on us, the elder generation, to help them reach their dreams by developing motivating projects and alternatives.
Seychelles NATION: You develop a project-idea and then you bring it to life with your architecture and engineering. Is this the way architects have to work today?
Michael Schwarz: Well, yes and no. It depends on the client. On one side you have the private family who want to build their own dream home. They normally have a plot of land and quite clear ideas of what they want. As an architect you try to translate their wishes into a building. There is no development needed, things are clear from the beginning on, no question marks. As an architect you can only hope that the client trusts in your abilities to design a home in which the family feels comfortable in. Sometimes an architect cannot convince a client what the project should be about at the end. Then it’s not fruitful to work together. For heaven sake this happens mostly in a very early stage of the project, no one is losing money. In Seychelles it happened once to me. Funny enough, it was not a local client, but a German one. Their ideas were so much different from mine of how the building should look that we decided not to work together. Nevertheless, sometimes we meet for a drink and talk about other things. Architecture is very often a compromise, but it always has to be a win-win situation.
On the other hand, you have so-called institutional investors like funds, banks, insurances, Pension funds... Their goal is a project which is in its architecture competitive on the market and makes money. In this case we start with a project development before we even start to talk about architecture.
This phase is coined by the research in the social, political, economical, environmental and the urban environment for such projects. After the final status quo analysis we provide an outlook into the future which includes possible disturbances in the macro and microenvironment which might affect the project negatively later. In this field we work together with academic institutions which support us. They feed algorithms with important parameters which will help in its result to develop a successful project. The parameters are the existing urban situation, characteristics of the society, ecological challenges, economical data…
Finally we sometimes see difficult circumstances in the social or ecological environment of a city or region which should be improved. We then activate our network and discuss this with the people in charge for such region and present our ideas for improvement. This phase has nothing to do with architecture or engineering, not at all. It defines the conceptual approach for a later urban intervention which finally results in architecture or infrastructure projects. Our business incubator is a good example for such approach.
After the collection of all data we then start the project in terms of urban design and architecture, discuss it with clients and authorities and finally build it. Sounds quite easy, but the entire process is a very complex one, many existing facts have to be taken into consideration. An example might be our ongoing research into the tourism Industry of the future and the upcoming challenges to stand the global destination competition in the next 30 years. For this competition, Seychelles is not badly placed, but nothing is that old as the success from yesterday. The most difficult question is how to change the mindset of people. “We always did it like that, why should we change it” is the wrong approach in a more and more globalised world. Seychelles needs ideas and innovation from all schools of thoughts. The business incubator could play a key role in this regard.
Seychelles NATION: Any final words from your side?
Michael Schwarz: I like to thank the European Union for their interest in such project, Minister (Marie-Celine) Zialor who was always ready to discuss the situation of the youth in the country, the department of trade for its Interest and support, the consultants of GOPA branch in Seychelles for their administrative work in the background and last but not least Oliver Bastienne from SCCI for his input, his information and sharing the vision of the project.
Laura Pillay