eWAKA has officially announced that its Co-founder and CEO, Céleste Tchetgen Vogel, has been selected as a 2026 Cartier Women’s Initiative Fellow. Vogel was recognized for her dedicated work to electrify Africa’s last mile, providing riders with clean vehicles they can own and a better way to earn. Chosen from applicants around the world, Vogel represents the Anglophone and Lusophone Africa category of the awards, which celebrate women entrepreneurs using business as a force for positive change.
Operating in Kenya and Rwanda, eWAKA combines electric motorcycles, cargo bikes, affordable vehicle financing, charging networks, and proprietary operations software into a unified model. The company’s early backers include the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) through its Start-up Fund, alongside impact investors and development finance partners.
Expanding Clean Transport Across Africa
As an early-stage company aiming to make Africa’s last mile clean, affordable, and accessible, eWAKA has achieved significant operational milestones:
- Active Fleet: Nearly 1,500 active riders across Kenya and Rwanda.
- Delivery Scale: More than one million deliveries completed, marking an increase of over 80,000 from the prior year.
- Merchant Adoption: Over 550 vendors onboarded onto the company’s merchant ordering platform.
- Economic Impact: Approximately Ksh 25 million earned by riders, alongside the creation of over 1,500 jobs where more than 85% of riders are aged 18 to 30.
- Environmental Savings: More than 3,000 metric tons of CO₂ emissions avoided through clean mobility operations.
Building on this momentum, eWAKA is actively expanding its operations into Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, demonstrating its confidence in regional growth and long-term sustainability impact across Africa.
A Vision for Sustainable Mobility
Reflecting on the milestone, eWAKA Co-founder and CEO Céleste Tchetgen Vogel said, “Mobility should open doors, not close them. When a rider can own a clean vehicle and earn a living with it, a whole family moves forward, and the city breathes a little easier. That is the future eWAKA is building, one electric mile at a time. To be welcomed into the Cartier Women’s Initiative, in its twentieth year, tells us the path is real, and gives us the resolve to walk it much further.”
The 2026 edition of the Cartier Women’s Initiative marks the program’s 20th anniversary. Centered around the theme ‘Lighting the Path,’ the awards ceremony brought together 30 fellows across 10 categories to honor women leaders driving meaningful, systemic transformation in their respective ecosystems.
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