Wayfinding with Ashoka East Africa and EdelGive/SIX
8 Oct
A look back at the EdelGive/SIX and Ashoka East Africa session, facilitated by Vincent Odhiambo and Carly Wickham, where Branice Kazira, Dr Zipporah Muiruri, Nyambura Njaramba and Rosemary Amondi shared their views ahead of Wayfinder Nairobi on 5–6 November 2026
Executive summary
Marking 25 years of Ashoka’s work in East Africa, Ashoka East Africa and EdelGive/SIX brought together four people who see the region’s social innovation ecosystem from very different seats: a founder, an academic, a government strategist and an impact investor. Facilitated by Vincent Odhiambo and Carly Wickham, the hour was a warm-up for Wayfinder Nairobi, with each speaker reflecting on what the ecosystem has given them, where it falls short, and what they would change.
Their answers converged on one diagnosis. East Africa is not short of innovators, networks, funding or policy. What it lacks are the pathways that connect them.
Key takeaways
The pieces already exist, but the connections don’t. Innovators, networks, capital and policy frameworks are all present in the region, yet innovators often have no clear route to reach them.
Co-creation builds trust and better products. Signvrse’s “nothing without us” approach puts Deaf people at the centre of collecting and validating its sign language data.
Most good ideas never get backing. Calls for innovation attract hundreds of strong proposals, and only a handful receive support.
Government invests where service delivery improves. Counties deliver much of Kenya’s public services, but innovators are rarely at the tables where decisions are made.
Ventures are chasing the wrong capital at the wrong time. Grants, patient capital and commercial finance each suit a different stage of growth.
Every level of the system needs a small adjustment, from how founders present their work to how governments make room for innovation.
Building with the people you serve
Branice Kazira co-founded Signvrse, a Kenyan company using AI and 3D avatars to offer virtual sign language interpretation where human interpreters can’t be present. An Ashoka Young Changemaker, she knows the familiar brush-off: “that’s nice, but is it scalable?” Her response is to keep building, since iteration is what turns a nice-to-have into a need-to-have.
Signvrse works by the mantra “nothing without us”. Deaf students and working professionals help gather, clean and check the company’s data, which earns trust and helps it sidestep costly mistakes. Her asks were concrete: sign language data, particularly in education and healthcare, and introductions to linguists who can shape the product roadmap.
From a good idea to a supported one
Dr Zipporah Muiruri, who coordinates the MA in Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability at Tangaza University’s Institute for Social Transformation, sees the same lesson in her students’ work: solutions succeed when designed alongside the people who will use them.
Her concern is what happens to the ideas that don’t make the cut. With hundreds of brilliant proposals competing for a few places, most go unsupported. Describing social innovation as “business for a good cause”, she urged companies to steer CSR budgets towards lasting solutions like Signvrse, so communities can become self-sufficient over time.
Closing the loop between innovators and government
Nyambura Njaramba, Head of Planning and Strategy at the Council of Governors in Nairobi, explained that counties deliver much of Kenya’s public services, from health and water to markets and early education. Government innovation therefore centres on systems and service delivery, and counties will listen and invest where an innovation fixes a real delivery problem.
The disconnect is that innovators are usually absent from the rooms where decisions happen, so a county may have no idea what someone like Branice is building. Frameworks such as the Science, Technology and Innovation Act of 2013 already exist; implementing them well is the next step. She wants innovation built into how government operates, a culture that opens leaders up to local innovators, and one table shared by policymakers, the private sector, development partners and innovators.
The right capital at the right time
Rosemary Amondi, now full time at Impact Investing Kenya, works to bring investors, philanthropy, development finance, business and policymakers together behind ventures that deliver social impact alongside financial return. She too sees these actors sitting in separate rooms.
Many ventures begin with “I need money”, she noted, when the better question is which money, and at what stage. She framed capital as a continuum: grants fund early discovery and evidence, patient capital gives a venture time to test its model and build a team, and commercial finance follows once revenue is predictable. Her proposals were to match capital to stage, use public procurement that favours social ventures, and give programmes a shared language so they fit together.
Where the voices met
Three threads ran through the hour. Connection is the missing piece: as Vincent observed, the region already has what innovators need, and each one needs a pathway to reach it. Building with users came up repeatedly, through Branice’s co-creation and Zipporah’s emphasis on designing with communities. And good ideas need a long runway, a point shared by Zipporah’s call on CSR and Rosemary’s capital continuum.
One wish for the next 12 months
Carly closed by asking each speaker for a single wish:
Branice: Greater unity across the ecosystem, with governments and corporates backing and implementing innovations.
Zipporah: A review of how the Science, Technology and Innovation Act has performed, followed by advice to government.
Nyambura: Coordinated innovation, with the private sector, government, development partners and innovators speaking the same language.
Rosemary: Coordination, shared pathways and a registry that recognises social ventures.
Vincent ended by asking everyone to hold Ashoka and its partners accountable for increasing the density of changemakers across East Africa, starting in Kenya.
