IE Africa Center Hosts Social Innovators Retreat

Seven of Africa’s most cutting-edge social innovators recently took part in IE University’s annual Social Innovators Retreat on the University’s Madrid campuses. The scale-up program is invite-only and run by the IE Africa Center with the support of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT. Designed to create a unique environment of knowledge sharing and generation, the program assists participants in finding new tools and partners to scale their current Africa-based companies or projects.

Over their four days hosted by IE University, participants delved into deep tech scalability with IE Prof. Youssouf Traore, while Prof. Concepción Galdon advocated for a holistic approach to social entrepreneurship spanning social, environmental, and economic realms. Prof. Grace Obado shed light on Africa's population and urbanization dynamics, underscoring untapped opportunities. Day three revolved around social innovation and impact measurement, guided by Profs. Rachida Justo and MIT Professor Valeria Budinich, who facilitated a collaborative exploration of systems change. Concluding sessions, led by Profs. Simon Gifford and the program Academic Director Joe Haslam, focused on nurturing entrepreneurial strengths and evaluating essential competencies for sustained progress in addressing social and environmental challenges.

“I am humbled by the drive and passion of this year’s exemplary and visionary entrepreneurs who are working tirelessly to address some of the continent and indeed the world's most pressing challenges.”
Eniola Harrison, Director of the IE Africa Center

“The Social Innovators Retreat explores how to scale sustainable impact and capitalize on Africa's development and is designed to not only support the work that these social entrepreneurs are doing right now in Africa but to create a network through which we can build knowledge together and within the global community.”

This year, the following social innovators were invited to participate in the program:

• Abisade Adenubi, CEO, Heritage Apparels, Nigeria
• Busi Mkhumbuzi, CEO, ThinkShift, South Africa
• David Mupenzi, CEO, Dairy Quality Assurance Laboratory, Rwanda
• Gilles Bazambanza, Founder, Kunoza, Rwanda
• Kelvin Hughes, Founder, Picanto Partners, Ghana
• Molade Adeniyi, CEO, West Africa Vocational Academy (WAVE), Nigeria
• Sonia Ziadi Trives, Co-founder, Limbo Collective, Morocco

“The four day social innovators retreat was just what I needed at this time where as an organization, we are looking to scale our impact,” commented Molade Adeniyi, CEO at WAVE. “I am excited to begin to implement the learnings and continue to nurture the relationships with other amazing leaders tackling pressing challenges across the continent and thereby leading to hope and prosperity for African.”

The IE Africa Center at IE University serves to promote an African-centric view of both modernity and the future by partnering with African innovators and their institutions on the continent and across the diaspora, to build academic content and research designed to reshape the world. The IE Africa Center collaborates with knowledge experts and thought leaders to bring the African perspective to global conversations on humanities, education, and social innovation.