eWAKA Joins the Cartier Women’s Initiative to Accelerate Africa’s Transition to Clean Mobility
NAIROBI, Kenya, July, 2026/ — eWAKA (www.eWAKA.tech) today
announced the company’s Co-founder and CEO, Céleste Tchetgen Vogel,
has been selected as a 2026 Cartier Women’s Initiative Fellow. Vogel
was recognized for her work to electrify Africa’s last mile, giving
riders 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 2026 Cartier Women’s Initiative
Awards, which celebrate women entrepreneurs using business as a force
for positive change.
eWAKA is an early-stage company with a clear ambition: to make
Africa’s last mile clean, affordable, and within reach of the people
who move it. Today it provides electric motorcycles and cargo bikes,
financing that lets riders own their vehicles affordably, and charging
and battery-swap to keep them moving. It coordinates deliveries and
fleet operations through its own software. It aims to grow this into a
managed electric delivery network, where businesses get reliable,
lower-cost delivery and riders earn a steady living. Operating in Kenya
and Rwanda, eWAKA is actively expanding into Burundi and the Democratic
Republic of Congo, demonstrating its confidence in regional growth and
impact.
eWAKA at a Glance
- Nearly 1,500 active riders in Kenya and Rwanda
- More than one million deliveries completed, up by over 80,000 on the prior year
- More than 550 vendors onboarded onto the company’s merchant ordering platform
- Approximately Ksh 25 million (about US$190,000 or CHF 150,000) earned by riders, up more than Ksh 6 million on the prior year
- More than 1,500 jobs were created, with over 85% of riders aged 18 to 30
- More than 3000 metric tons of CO₂ emissions avoided through clean mobility operations
- Woman-founded and woman-led, with women working as riders, vendors, and agents across the network
By bringing electric vehicles, financing, and software together in a
single operation, eWAKA is building a model it can carry from one city
to the next, so that each new market means more riders earning, more
businesses served, and cleaner air to breathe. 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.
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.”
eWAKA is building Africa’s next-generation electric mobility platform,
operating in Kenya and Rwanda and expanding into Burundi and the
Democratic Republic of Congo. Originally from Cameroon, Vogel is an
African entrepreneur who co-founded eWAKA in 2021 after a career in
senior legal and executive roles at Credit Suisse, ABB, and Swiss Re.
She holds a degree in economics and international relations from Ohio
Wesleyan University and a law degree from Northwestern University’s
Pritzker School of Law, both in the United States. She was named among
the Most Influential Women in Mobility in 2024 and to the Meaningful
Business 100 in 2025. eWAKA works with ETH Zurich as a technical partner
on battery and fleet data.
Cartier Women’s Initiative Director Kiyo Taga-Witkin commented, “_We
are delighted to welcome Céleste Tchetgen Vogel to the Cartier
Women’s Initiative community. Through eWAKA, she exemplifies how
entrepreneurship can drive meaningful, positive change. We look forward
to supporting her journey and celebrating the impact she is
creating_.”
The Cartier Women’s Initiative is an international entrepreneurship
program established in 2006 to support women impact entrepreneurs who
are building a more inclusive society for generations to come. Since its
inception, the program has been dedicated to identifying and
accompanying women whose businesses address the world’s most pressing
social and environmental challenges. Through a comprehensive approach
combining financial support, access to a global network, and tailored
leadership development, the Cartier Women’s Initiative enables fellows
to scale their businesses while strengthening their capacity to lead and
create lasting impact.
Over the years, the initiative has grown into a vibrant international
community of more than 520 community members, united by a shared
ambition to drive meaningful change within their respective ecosystems.
At its core, the Cartier Women’s Initiative is guided by a set of
enduring convictions: the belief that women are powerful agents of
transformation, that talent is universal, while opportunities are not,
that continuous learning is essential to progress, and that sustainable
impact is rooted in a deep commitment to the communities it serves.
