Launching East Africa Accelerator 2021

After an extensive search, we’re proud to welcome fifteen inspirational social enterprises to our East Africa Accelerator, co-created with our partner Acumen.

Meet each of the social enterprises here.

Each enterprise has been specially selected and works in the agriculture, energy, forestry, health or finance sectors. They all have the ambition to scale their impact and give more people in the region better access to critical goods, services and sustainable livelihoods/jobs.

During this 14-week programme, IKEA co-worker will act as coaches and support the social enterprises with their scale-up plans, but also take inspiration and knowledge from working with them.

"I’m excited to join this programme and share my IKEA business knowledge with the social entrepreneurs, but also to connect with them and be inspired by their visions and work" says Azaliah Mapombere, Sustainability Development Leader and IKEA co-worker coach.

The participating social enterprises will learn the value of engaging with customers, modelling finances for sustainability and developing a marketing strategy among other subjects.

This programme builds on the successful East Africa Accelerator which ran in 2020.