
Mechanical engineer turned software founder. I started out designing aerospace manufacturing facilities in VR at DAHER, then founded Konfigear in 2019 to bring the same visualization tools to the way configurable products are sold. Today the platform serves more than 200 organizations across 20+ countries, and Konfiwear applies it specifically to custom apparel.


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Founder & CEO, Konfigear and Konfiwear

Yassine Ait Oufkir


[South Summit](https://www.southsummit.co/) 2024 ran 5–7 June at La Nave in Madrid. I was there with Konfigear on two clocks at once: the stand, and a talk. The talk was the clearer of the two. Traditional online shopping still forces a customer to describe a product that does not exist yet. That is the problem on the slide. Configuration is the answer we sell.

The stand existed because [CEEI Asturias](https://www.ceei.es/) and [ASTUREX](https://www.asturex.org/) put the region in one room — Asturias Paraíso Startup — next to companies I would rather share a floor with than a keynote hall. People came to the booth. People came to the talk. That is the whole report.

<figure class="story-figure">
  <img src="/images/yassine-ait-oufkir-konfigear-south-summit-2024-madrid.jpg" alt="Yassine Ait Oufkir pitching Konfigear on the South Summit 2024 stage in Madrid, with Start in Asturias and CEEI Asturias on the screens" width="1024" height="682" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
  <figcaption>South Summit 2024, La Nave — Konfigear on the Start in Asturias stage. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aitoufkiir_configuraciaejn-personalizada-configuraciaejn-activity-7204903257788313601-6YkL" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Original post on LinkedIn</a>.</figcaption>
</figure>

<figure class="story-figure">
  <img src="/images/yassine-ait-oufkir-south-summit-2024-la-nave-madrid.jpg" alt="Yassine Ait Oufkir at the South Summit 2024 entrance installation at La Nave, Madrid" width="1024" height="473" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
  <figcaption>Outside La Nave, June 2024.</figcaption>
</figure>

<figure class="story-figure">
  <img src="/images/south-summit-2024-asturias-startup-paradise-delegation.jpg" alt="Asturias Startup Paradise delegation group photo at South Summit 2024 in Madrid, with CEEI Asturias and ASTUREX branding" width="1024" height="550" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
  <figcaption>The Asturias delegation at stands 158–159.</figcaption>
</figure>

Three days is not enough to close anything serious. It is enough to find out who already understands why a product configurator is not a nicer product page. I will go back.


Yassine Ait Oufkir at South Summit 2024 in Madrid — pitching Konfigear on the Start in Asturias stage, and three days on the Asturias Startup Paradise stand.

South Summit 2024: Pitching Konfigear at La Nave


The first [GITEX Africa](https://www.gitexafrica.com/) ran in Marrakech at the end of May 2023. I was there on the 10X START UP Stage, talking about the years we spent building the company out of Asturias — not a product demo, a timeline.

That story only exists because of the people who made the Spanish chapter possible: [CEEI Asturias](https://www.ceei.es/), [ICEX](https://www.icex.es/), and the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Casablanca. They put us in a room with operators who were already building, not just visiting a booth.

<figure class="story-figure">
  <img src="/images/yassine-ait-oufkir-gitex-africa-2023.jpg" alt="Ait Oufkir Yassine on the 10X START UP Stage at GITEX Africa 2023 in Marrakech, presenting the Asturias startup journey" width="1024" height="1024" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
  <figcaption>GITEX Africa 2023, 10X START UP Stage, Marrakech. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aitoufkiir_gitexafrica-asturias-startupjourney-activity-7070360735112912896-lNF5" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Original post on LinkedIn</a>.</figcaption>
</figure>

Trade shows are noisy. The useful part is rarely the keynote. It is the conversation afterwards — the founder who has the same distribution problem, the partner who already works the market you are about to enter. I left with a few of those, which is the only metric that still matters three years later.


On the 10X START UP Stage in Marrakech I told the Asturias chapter of the company — and left with better conversations than a slide deck usually buys.

Startups

South Summit 2024: Pitching Konfigear at La Nave

GITEX Africa 2023