Ashoka builds and cultivates a community of change
leaders who see that the world now requires everyone
to be a changemaker.
Together, we are transforming the new inequality
facing societies worldwide into a world where
everyone can co-lead solutions for the common good.
WISE The Women's Initiative for Social Entrepreneurship
Women are capable of transforming lives. Yet women innovators face a lack of access to the social resources that would allow them to grow entrepreneurial initiatives, scale their impact. Social impact often limited to number of beneficiaries reached neglecting women scale to change power structures.
There are a lot of uncertainties in the future, but we try to see them as opportunities, because uncertainty always motivates people to innovate. This is how social leaders activating change across the Arab Region in response to COVID-19.
WISE The Women's Initiative for Social Entrepreneurship
Ashoka Arab World Fellows
Arab World Fellows Respond to COVID-19 Pandemic
Ashoka's Priorities and Theory of Change
Ashoka focuses on four strategic priorities to help people understand and adapt to a world of accelerating change, where everyone is called on to be a leader:
Social Entrepreneurship
Ashoka selects world-class social entrepreneurs who are leading the way to an everyone-a-changemaker world.
Ashoka is leading a movement to transform how young people grow up so they thrive in today’s rapidly changing world where everyone must be a changemaker. Changemaking starts with empathy.
Ashoka’s country and regional offices around the world co-create and co-lead Ashoka’s programming. This enables our global changemaker community to capture and act upon emerging insights, knowledge, and talents of innovators from a wide range of cultural and regional contexts.
Our changemaker community consists of 4,000+ Fellows, 250+ change institutions, 100+ Young Changemakers, and 300+ partners across more than 95 countries. Together, we form a strong, diverse and vibrant ecosystem of change agents collaborating and co-leading to positively transform societies and cultures around the world. Learn more about our changemaker community
Ashoka and The UPS Foundation are happy to announce a partnership to create greater equity and economic development across the African continent. The partnership will empower marginalized communities by engaging 15 equity leaders in an accelerator program and cultivating a community of 80 women changemakers across Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, and Morocco to reach 160,000 beneficiaries.
Ashoka and The UPS Foundation are happy to announce a partnership to create greater equity and economic development across the African continent. The partnership will empower marginalized communities by engaging 15 equity leaders in an accelerator program and cultivating a community of 80 women changemakers across Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, and Morocco to reach 160,000 beneficiaries.
Ashoka Arab World social impact strategies are designed to improve social entrepreneurs' overall mission, not just its personal identity. They serve as concrete and measurable plans that have quantifiable social outcomes and definitive societal impact.
How society helps children grow up needs fundamental innovation at least as urgently as in how it produces computers. That is why Ashoka is so important. It finds, helps launch, and then links and leverages the most powerful social innovations and innovators.
Carol Bellamy
Former Executive Director, UNICEF
Bill Drayton emphasized to us [that] empathy is increasingly becoming our primary resource for dealing with the exponential rate of change the world is going through.
Arianna Huffington
Founder, The Huffington Post
We recognize a new era is about to start. In this new era, empathy and changemaking skills, which Ashoka exemplifies, would equip our young people to lead the country.
Kan Suzuki
Professor at Tokyo University and Keio University
No matter a person’s abilities, if he or she helps others – to that degree he or she will be powerful, happy, and long-lived. That’s why Ashoka’s leadership in building a world where everyone is a changemaker, i.e., a giver, makes it so special and powerful.
Timothy P. Shriver
Chairman, the Special Olympics
Forbes knows that the story is change. No one sees that more clearly than Ashoka. It has an extraordinary ability both to envision the big, new patterns and to engineer their emergence.
Led by Ashoka Arab World’s Regional Director and Vice President of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, Iman Bibars, WISE sets forth a groundbreaking vision for paradigm shift in the social entrepreneurship ecosystem toward recognizing and supporting scaling up and deep impact – a form of impact commonly led by women social innovators where policies are changed and mindsets, social norms, and patterns of behavior are affected.
Our biggest donor to date, Al Waleed Philanthropies is a leading Saudi Arabian NGO with a mission to build the bridges necessary for cultural understanding, community development. Supporting Ashoka in electing new Fellows in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Morocco, they are also championing the movement to create a new generation of Changemakers and Social Entrepreneurs through the Innovation Factory programme in all 3 countries.
Our biggest donor to date, Al Waleed Philanthropies is a leading Saudi Arabian NGO with a mission to build the bridges necessary for cultural understanding, community development. Supporting Ashoka in electing new Fellows in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Morocco, they are also championing the movement to create a new generation of Changemakers and Social Entrepreneurs through the Innovation Factory programme in all 3 countries.
Established in 1987, Amreyah Cement became a member of InterCement Group in 2012. Their priority is the well-being of those they serve through a relentless focus on innovation and continuous improvement to build a sustainable future. AMCC has been an important Ashoka Arab World partner since 2021 and we continue to serve the Amreyah and Borg Al Arab communities, catering to their needs and together creating a Changemaking community in the area.
Established in 1987, Amreyah Cement became a member of InterCement Group in 2012. Their priority is the well-being of those they serve through a relentless focus on innovation and continuous improvement to build a sustainable future. AMCC has been an important Ashoka Arab World partner since 2021 and we continue to serve the Amreyah and Borg Al Arab communities, catering to their needs and together creating a Changemaking community in the area.
From its headquarters in Liechtenstein, the Hilti Foundation has championed Ashoka’s changemaking vision in the Arab region since our establishment in 2003. From the election of our first group of Fellows through recent initiatives to bolster and scale Fellows’ impact, the Hilti Foundation has stood as one of our central partners, witnessing with us the evolution of our work and growth of a powerful ecosystem of systems-changing individuals. With their partnership, Ashoka has been able to change the lives of millions of individuals through our Fellows and spark immense economic growth across the Arab region.
From its headquarters in Liechtenstein, the Hilti Foundation has championed Ashoka’s changemaking vision in the Arab region since our establishment in 2003. From the election of our first group of Fellows through recent initiatives to bolster and scale Fellows’ impact, the Hilti Foundation has stood as one of our central partners, witnessing with us the evolution of our work and growth of a powerful ecosystem of systems-changing individuals. With their partnership, Ashoka has been able to change the lives of millions of individuals through our Fellows and spark immense economic growth across the Arab region.
Schneider Electric is a company offering electrical solutions and energy efficiency services, which puts ethics and responsibility at the center of its interactions with the community it works in. In 1998 it founded the Schneider Electric Foundation, which has as its primary commitment contributing to the development of people and societies through education, innovation, awareness and vocational training on energy related professions.
In 2016, Schneider Electric launched, in partnership with Ashoka a program to fight energy poverty, consisting of a challenge for social innovation projects addressing this issue, followed by a 3 months’ capacity building and acceleration program to scale the winning projects, involving members of the company and the Ashoka network as mentors of the process. Each edition ended with a Social Innovation Conference, on the topic of ending energy poverty, aiming to involve other actors and start up a movement for better and further collaboration and knowledge sharing in this sector.
In the programs’ 2nd edition, 3 portuguese projects benefitted from the financial support and capacity building provided by Schneider collaborators: Coopérnico, Just a Change and CENSE. By the end of the program (replicating Ashoka’s Globalizer Program), the relationships established between the foundation, the company’s staff and projects’ remained active. Today, Schneider Electric is still actively supporting these projects.
Schneider Electric is a company offering electrical solutions and energy efficiency services, which puts ethics and responsibility at the center of its interactions with the community it works in. In 1998 it founded the Schneider Electric Foundation, which has as its primary commitment contributing to the development of people and societies through education, innovation, awareness and vocational training on energy related professions.
In 2016, Schneider Electric launched, in partnership with Ashoka a program to fight energy poverty, consisting of a challenge for social innovation projects addressing this issue, followed by a 3 months’ capacity building and acceleration program to scale the winning projects, involving members of the company and the Ashoka network as mentors of the process. Each edition ended with a Social Innovation Conference, on the topic of ending energy poverty, aiming to involve other actors and start up a movement for better and further collaboration and knowledge sharing in this sector.
In the programs’ 2nd edition, 3 portuguese projects benefitted from the financial support and capacity building provided by Schneider collaborators: Coopérnico, Just a Change and CENSE. By the end of the program (replicating Ashoka’s Globalizer Program), the relationships established between the foundation, the company’s staff and projects’ remained active. Today, Schneider Electric is still actively supporting these projects.
Deloitte & Touche (M.E.) is a member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL) and is the first Arab professional services firm established in the Middle East region with uninterrupted presence since 1926. AAW has been partnering with Deloitte's DASI (Deloitte Accelerator for Social Impact) since 2019 and has supported in promoting, selecting and mentoring young entrepreneurs in the region.
Deloitte & Touche (M.E.) is a member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL) and is the first Arab professional services firm established in the Middle East region with uninterrupted presence since 1926. AAW has been partnering with Deloitte's DASI (Deloitte Accelerator for Social Impact) since 2019 and has supported in promoting, selecting and mentoring young entrepreneurs in the region.
Catalyst 2030 is a collection of social entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, corporations, independent individuals, civil societies and governments, who have all come together in an effort to answer a simple question with a very complicated answer: How can we ensure the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are met by 2030?
Catalyst 2030 is a collection of social entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, corporations, independent individuals, civil societies and governments, who have all come together in an effort to answer a simple question with a very complicated answer: How can we ensure the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are met by 2030?
Since 1995, Porticus has coordinated the philanthropic endeavours founded by the Brenninkmeijer family business owners, continuing a tradition of social engagement stretching back as far as 1841. Porticus in the Middle East has been supporting Ashoka Arab World since 2021 in engaging young people to become Changemakers in the region and helping to spread the WISE movement in the region and globally.
Since 1995, Porticus has coordinated the philanthropic endeavours founded by the Brenninkmeijer family business owners, continuing a tradition of social engagement stretching back as far as 1841. Porticus in the Middle East has been supporting Ashoka Arab World since 2021 in engaging young people to become Changemakers in the region and helping to spread the WISE movement in the region and globally.
One of the largest automotive manufacturing companies in the world, GM aspires to be the world’s most inclusive company and is committed to helping create a clean, safe and equitable world for all. They are supporting Ashoka globally to support local economies and giving back to promote social progress in the communities where they work through the Youth Venturers programme.
One of the largest automotive manufacturing companies in the world, GM aspires to be the world’s most inclusive company and is committed to helping create a clean, safe and equitable world for all. They are supporting Ashoka globally to support local economies and giving back to promote social progress in the communities where they work through the Youth Venturers programme.
RISE Egypt is a global nonprofit that is leveraging its network of top experts, investors, and researchers to accelerate entrepreneurship for development in Egypt. Rise has partnered with Ashoka Arab World to map and expand the network of social entrepreneurs in Egypt to create connections and increase collaboration.
RISE Egypt is a global nonprofit that is leveraging its network of top experts, investors, and researchers to accelerate entrepreneurship for development in Egypt. Rise has partnered with Ashoka Arab World to map and expand the network of social entrepreneurs in Egypt to create connections and increase collaboration.
Born out of Oxford University, CREO Incubator is a great tool for entrepreneurs of all stages to access quality content in a fun gamified way. CREO and Ashoka Arab World have been partnering to arabize CREO's content to make it more accessible for entrepreneurs in the region.
Born out of Oxford University, CREO Incubator is a great tool for entrepreneurs of all stages to access quality content in a fun gamified way. CREO and Ashoka Arab World have been partnering to arabize CREO's content to make it more accessible for entrepreneurs in the region.
Total Energies Egypt has partnered with Ashoka Arab World to identify and mentor Social Entrepreneurs in Egypt through our extensive network of Fellows.
Total Energies Egypt has partnered with Ashoka Arab World to identify and mentor Social Entrepreneurs in Egypt through our extensive network of Fellows.
Newly Elected Fellows 2022
We are very excited to announce the election of 2 new Arab World Fellows for 2022 and to welcome them into the Ashoka family: Farah Al-Sayyed from Jordan and Elyes Guermazi from Tunisia.
These amazing social entrepreneurs are doing real systemically changing work in empowering marginalized communities and giving voices to the voiceless, finding creative solutions to local problems.
Ashoka
