Ashoka
Ashoka is the largest network of social entrepreneurs in the world.
Since its founding more than 30 years ago
Ashoka has provided stipends, professional support services, and connections to a global network for more than 3,000 leading social entrepreneurs - elected as Ashoka Fellows - in over 92 countries. Ashoka is the professional home for entrepreneurial individuals from both the business and private sector, a platform for the growing global network of people dedicated to creating systemic social change.
Ashoka Arab World has pioneered and been the platform for social entrepreneurship across the Arab region
Ashoka Arab World has paved the way for a formal and flourishing social entrepreneurship sector in the region, identifying and electing more than 115 of the region’s leading social entrepreneurs across 12 countries.
Across this trajectory, the engine of Ashoka’s work in the Arab World has remained the selection and empowerment of the region’s leading social entrepreneurs. Our Fellows are visionary and forceful changemakers with new, transformative ideas to address all areas of human need. To enable them to create systemic change at the highest levels, we provide our Fellows with a variety of personal, strategic, and connective support. In addition, we work across fields with partners in the civic, business, and public sectors who share our belief that interconnected and escalating social challenges threaten us all, and demand collaborative, innovative action.
Moreover, Ashoka Arab World leads the charge to raise and educate new generations of changemakers among the region’s children and youth. Through leveraging the innovations of our Fellows who co-lead this movement with us, we work with schools, teachers, parents, Boards of Education, government, and media to transform the way young people are prepared for a rapidly-evolving world.
Milestones
Ashoka Arab World Programs
Ashoka Arab World Venture & Fellowship
Ashoka searches the world to select and empower leading social entrepreneurs who are providing innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems, whether human, environmental, or economic. Our Fellows are visionary and forceful changemakers with new, systems-changing ideas to address all areas of human need.
Ashoka Arab World nominates at least six of these social entrepreneurs every year to be a part of the global Ashoka Fellowship network. As Fellows, social entrepreneurs receive stipends, professional support services, and access to a global network in order to elevate their impact and accelerate change.
Women's Initiative for Social Entrepreneurship
Ashoka’s Women’s Initiative for Social Entrepreneurship (WISE) is a global movement that aims to identify and address the gender-specific challenges that impede women and girls in all stages of life from becoming innovators and changemakers. Through WISE, Ashoka seeks to elevate the number, knowledge, and power of women in social entrepreneurship by uncovering the obstacles women innovators face and using these insights to shift the paradigm of success in social entrepreneurship to recognize and advance female changemakers.
Youth Engagement: Creating an Everyone A Changemaker World
Ashoka Young Changemakers around the world form a network of youth who have already committed themselves to creating positive change and are ready to step up as allies in Ashoka’s movement to create an Everyone A Changemaker (EACH) world. These are young individuals under 20 taken the step to build teams and launch initiatives to create social impact in their communities, distinguishing themselves as driven and passionate young leaders.
In an effort to instill changemaking values across the Middle East and North Africa region and advance young women innovators as part of Ashoka’s WISE, Ashoka Arab World recently launched a Young ChangemakHERS Transformative Journey to expose young women leaders in Egypt to the influential players in the region’s social entrepreneurship ecosystem and create a platform to amplify their voices and ideas for social changes. Ashoka Arab World is now leveraging the momentum around this movement to identify young leaders ready to co-lead the movement to create an EACH society in the region.
Ashoka Arab World Stories
Staff
Iman Bibars
Arab World Diamond Leader
Iman Bibars
Arab World Diamond Leader
A visionary for social entrepreneurship and a pioneer of women-led and gender-focused development initiatives for over 30 years, Iman Bibars is the Vice President of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public and the Founder and Regional Director of Ashoka Arab World. Dr. Bibars is also the Co-founder and current Chairperson of Egypt’s very first microfinance organization, the Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women (ADEW): a citizen sector organization that provides credit and legal aid for impoverished female heads of household. She is currently leading Ashoka in launching its revolutionary Women's Initiative for Social Entrepreneurship (WISE) - a movement aiming to redefine success and elevate women social innovators around the world.
Dr. Bibars holds a PhD in Development Studies from Sussex University and a BA and MA in Political Science from the American University in Cairo.
Boehringer Ingelheim
Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) and Ashoka have partnered together in promoting innovative solutions to challenging health problems since 2010. By exploring the intersection of social entrepreneurship, employee talent development, and healthcare networks the teams have co-designed "win-win" solutions to global healthcare challenges. Solutions have come through increasing individuals’ access to healthcare and community health issues, especially underserved populations. Over 5 years, the team has supported 75 Making More Health fellows in 47 countries, launched 3 global open-source competitions finding 800+ health innovations worldwide, and engage 10% of BI's global workforce of 45,000.
Boehringer Ingelheim
Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) and Ashoka have partnered together in promoting innovative solutions to challenging health problems since 2010. By exploring the intersection of social entrepreneurship, employee talent development, and healthcare networks the teams have co-designed "win-win" solutions to global healthcare challenges. Solutions have come through increasing individuals’ access to healthcare and community health issues, especially underserved populations. Over 5 years, the team has supported 75 Making More Health fellows in 47 countries, launched 3 global open-source competitions finding 800+ health innovations worldwide, and engage 10% of BI's global workforce of 45,000.
Deloitte
Deloitte provides accounting services to Ashoka including Payroll services, Tax administration, Yearly book closing and Audit support.
The Lego Foundation
LEGO Foundation and Ashoka believe that playful learning can change the world. Together, Ashoka and Lego have begun to identify play-based learning innovations around the world and to re-imagine learning for the 21st century.
McKinsey & Company
A strategic consulting company, McKinsey & Company creates strategic missions and conducts evaluations of social impact studies for Ashoka and for Fellows around the world. McKinsey & Company also support Ashoka Fellows with personal consultations that will help launch and scale Fellows' strategy and impact.
McKinsey & Company
A strategic consulting company, McKinsey & Company creates strategic missions and conducts evaluations of social impact studies for Ashoka and for Fellows around the world. McKinsey & Company also support Ashoka Fellows with personal consultations that will help launch and scale Fellows' strategy and impact.
Ursula Zindel-Hilti Foundation
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.
Ursula Zindel-Hilti Foundation
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.
Contact
Ashoka Arab World
Email:
[email protected]
Phone:
+2 02 23583499 +2 02 23807995
Address:
Ashoka Arab World
25 Misr Helwan Agricultural St.
Zeiny Tower, tenth floor
Cairo
11451
Egypt