What We Do

We support entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and innovators to build, launch and scale the groundbreaking innovations that will transform our future, and contribute to thriving, sustainable and resilient communities in Africa through five key pillars.

Our innovation practice enables individuals, teams and organizations to build human-centered solutions for thriving, sustainable and resilient communities in Africa.
We support organizations with realizing their internal and external innovation goals in short- and long-term engagements.
We are key partners in the innovation journey and come in as advisors and process facilitators. Our services include:

Interactive and hands-on Workshops on Innovation Strategy, Design Thinking, Lean Startup and other innovation methods
Innovation project design and facilitation: design and implementation of 3-12 months innovation and human-centred design processes
Design research: in-depth insights into human behaviour, underlying needs and challenges through empathy-led research

Training & Resources

We are the leading innovation and entrepreneurship training partner in the region. Our training nurtures young and established leaders and enables them to build thriving, sustainable and resilient communities.

Venture Building

Our venture building studio works with early-stage entrepreneurs through the difficult stages of market validation, launch and initial traction. We do this in two ways:

We design and implement sector-focussed programs in partnership with our core partners
Our Lighthouse Program in Partnership with idego matches early stage entrepreneurs with core talent globally

Research & Insights

We conduct cutting edge research in innovation and entrepreneurship with a different industry and academic partners. This includes:

Case Studies on African success stories. We are a founding partner of the African business review platform, a community that collects and shares success stories of African founders and business leaders.
Industry-reports on innovation. We regularly share industry reports on innovation and entrepreneurship in key sectors.

We build communities around innovation, technology and entrepreneurship in specific industries. This includes:

Regular meet-ups and events
Knowledge sharing and connection
Tools for innovation and startup growth

Our Initiatives

WFP IGNITE SEED Innovation Programme

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) IGNITE Innovation Hub, Circle Innovation and DTU Skylab FoodLab, with the support of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs are leading the IGNITE SEED Innovation Programme to support research

Learning Labs

In partnership with the British Council, Circle Innovation is implementing three Learning Labs with Kenyan and British University students. Student teams work on climate innovation challenges in a three-month hybrid co-creation process, culminating in a five-day immersive experience in Nairobi.

Immersion Missions

In partnership with EcoTec we are facilitating highly interactive and engaging 5-day Immersion Missions to Nairobi for European senior and executive leaders and managers. Learn more in the video and hear from past participants about this life changing journey!

The Lighthouse Programme

Long-Lasting Job Creation Through Entrepreneurship. Our holistic, long-term program provides support to social entrepreneurs, guiding them from the idea stage to establishing a fully-fledged SME that creates 100+ job opportunities in Rwanda and Kenya. Our proven method will support entrepreneurs to create 100,000 jobs in Kenya and Rwanda by 2030. Contact Us for more info!

Disrupt4Her Incubator

The Disrupt4Her Incubator in partnership with Plan International and GrowthAfrica supports early stage businesses that target low-income women and girls. We ran our first cohort in 2023, and you can read more about it here. We are currently working on scaling this incubator to other countries. Reach Out to Partner with us!

See us in Action