The power of meeting in-person, and how collaboration can deepen when distance fades

In a world where remote collaboration has become the norm, face-to-face experiences during Ashoka and IKEA Social Entrepreneurship’s Dela accelerator programme reveal something powerful: in-person encounters can be transformative.

For the past five years, the Dela programme has supported social entrepreneurs from all over the world and paired them with experts from IKEA and other companies. The pairs engage in knowledge sharing and work together on challenges like strategy and operations, learning from one another throughout the one-year programme.

While many social entrepreneurs and co-workers’ teams worked exclusively online, others had the chance to meet during the Dela Summit or even travel to each other’s home countries. And when they did, something shifted: collaboration deepened, empathy grew, and connections became even more personal. Read on to discover how these in-person engagements have been critical to Dela programme participants’ experience and future work.

The Dela Programme: forging connections across countries and sectors

Soumya Parvatiyar, Joanna Cymbalista, and Sandal Kakkar all work at IKEA and participated in the Dela programme in 2024. They were matched with Ashoka Fellow Rajendra Joshi, whose organization Saath provides opportunities and co-creates with marginalized communities across India, from urban slums to rural villages.

After working together virtually for four months, Soumya, Joanna, and Sandal got a chance to visit Rajendra in New Delhi and meet the Saath team. This experience deepened their connection and understanding of Saath’s work.

For Joanna, a Project Manager at IKEA, the biggest Aha! moment of the trip was seeing how Saath’s work created pride and ownership in communities. “This touching, feeling, being, listening, and experiencing… it was amazing.”

“Talking and describing is one thing, but meeting in person, interacting, makes a big difference,” Rajendra shared.

This face-to-face connection brought unexpected learnings, too. Joanna spoke about becoming a better leader through observing Saath’s grounded, impact-first mindset. Sandal, working in Business Expansion at IKEA, captured his learnings with the “Three P’s” - Passion, Persistence, and Perseverance - qualities he saw embodied in Saath’s decades-long commitment to systemic change. He hopes to carry on the Three P’s into his own work at IKEA.
 

Trust, curiosity, and relationship-building at the Dela Summit

Across the programme, participants echo these sentiments. Martin Otahel, an IKEA co-worker based in Vietnam, was paired with Ashoka Fellow Anna Oposa. Anna’s organization Save Philippine Seas engages young changemakers, businesses, governments, and the citizen sector in marine conservation.

Martin and Anna met in person at the Dela Summit, where Martin realized that what started as a structured collaboration turned into something far more personal and lasting. As he puts it, 

“The level of trust, openness, and curiosity we built in-person helped us go much deeper, much faster.”

According to Anna, 

“Working with Martin and the rest of the Dela thought partners was life-changing. Martin always came to meetings with curiosity, kindness, and encouragement. Though it’s been two years since the programme, my teammates in Save Philippine Seas and I continue to refer to Dela as having a major ROI, which typically stands for Return On Investment, but for us it also means Ripples of Impact. The outputs and mindsets we gained from the program impact how we design our projects and scale our programs.”

Similarly, Christina Enocson, Retail Equipment Manager at IKEA with more than 30 years of experience at the company, emphasized how meeting her Dela Fellow’s team face-to-face during the Dela Summit gave their work “a human texture”, something that video calls alone simply couldn’t replicate.
 

In-person events: breeding grounds for collaboration

In some cases, proximity has made it even easier to collaborate with each other. IKEA co-worker Lars-Erik Fridolfsson and Ashoka Fellow Thorkil Sonne used their geographical closeness (living just a few hours apart in Sweden and Denmark, respectively) to run in-person workshops.

Lars-Erik described how this enabled a special bond: “There was a spark in the room, one that you can’t create through a screen. It helped us see each other not just as collaborators, but as people.”

Thorkil added that the Dela programme gave him a unique opportunity “to pivot my mission from inclusive employment programs to address the root causes for the lack of inclusion and diversity in companies and communities around the world. It gave valuable inspiration on how to promote neurodiversity in minds by promoting beliefs that everyone is different, everyone is important, and everyone is good at something, and it opened up neurodiversity in systems by enabling squares in our environments where we can be different and together.”

“I value the very close collaboration with Lars-Erik and Fanny [another IKEA coworker] and our shared ambition to shrive for a world where everyone belongs regardless of the way our brain is wired,” Thorkil shared.

And even in the early editions of Dela, as in this feature from Dela cohort I, in-person work left long-lasting impressions. The collaboration between two women, an IKEA co-worker and a Bolivian Ashoka Fellow, blossomed thanks to travel, shared meals, and long days working side by side. Their connection laid the foundation for expanding entrepreneurship in Bolivia. “It’s not saying ‘help us’” Ashoka Fellow Allison Silva and founder of Fundación Emprender Futuro, explains. “It’s saying ‘let’s work together and let’s build better solutions for the world.’”

The power of proximity

These stories offer one clear message: when people and teams step into each other’s worlds, the work becomes more grounded, the impact more visible, and the connection more human.

While online tools will always be a part of global collaboration, creating opportunities for in-person interaction, even once, can be a critical accelerator for systems change. It’s where trust is built not just through shared goals, but shared experiences.

Check out the video below to see programme participants sharing about Dela’s impact!

The Dela programme is currently in its fifth year, and has counted on four editions and 560 participants. Since the first accelerator, 65% of the participating social entrepreneurs have changed their strategies to grow their impact beyond their organizations, and all of them felt more confident in pursuing systems change. As per the participating co-workers, all of them gained valuable insights, became more aware of their agency, and activated others for social impact.

Learn more about the programme and meet the current cohort here.