Our programs
- Social Innovators Retreat
The Social Innovators Retreat program is designed to create a unique knowledge-generation and sharing intellectual experience for Africa’s most cutting-edge social innovators, whose novel approaches to solving systemic issues may serve as models for the world.
- Gurus and Griots
Gurus and Griots fellowship program is a selective, cohort-based fellowship that puts African and Afro-descendant leaders front and center as educators and representatives of IE University. The yearlong program will address global challenges and help develop and showcase the unique perspectives of the fellows, incorporating their work into the IE University ecosystem.
- IE School of Human Sciences & Technology
Africa Lab
The IE Africa Center has partnered with IE School of Human Sciences & Technology to develop IE Africa Lab. The IE Africa Lab is a virtual residency program focused on identifying high- impact African entrepreneurs, supporting their growth through storytelling, market research and data analytics, and opening new pathways for them in the European market. The IE Africa Lab first cohort features five African Ashoka Fellows, who collaborate with IE faculty and students across two courses.
ACW Country Branding Capstone Project
In 2019 the Africa Center and its partner AfricaCommsWeek launched a capstone project with the School of Human Sciences and Technology to understand the impact of media African narratives.
The study has been extended to the School of Global & Public Affairs and both schools work on a coordinated effort between the MID and the MCMC students, though the two projects will develop independently for the time being. The main objective of this study is to provide recommendations for national communication strategy that will address the way that African countries are perceived in the media:
- IE Business School
IE University Challenge
The IE University Business Challenge on COVID resilience in Africa involved 350 IE undergraduate business students providing consulting services for five companies across the African continent. The challenge was designed for IE University’s undergraduate students in collaboration with the IE Africa Center and Professor Lucia Egea as faculty lead.
Endeavor Post IMBA Fellowship
IE’s Africa Center partners with African innovators and institutions on the continent and across the diaspora, to build academic content and research designed to reshape the world and bring the African perspective to global conversations on humanities, education and social innovation.
Endeavor is leading the high-impact entrepreneurship movement around the world and its entrepreneurs continue to transform their communities, create quality jobs and inspire future generations of founders.
IE Africa Center has partnered with Endeavor to create the IE –Endeavor Post IMBA Fellowship Program – a unique post-IMBA experience that offers recently graduated IE IMBA students the opportunity to get involved with entrepreneurs and companies providing African solutions to global challenges. Selected IE International MBA students will be matched with Endeavor entrepreneurs in Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya to work in country on high impact projects for a period of 3 – 12 months. - IE School of Global and Public Affairs
ACW Research Study on the impact of narratives on Africa’s development
IE Africa Center has partnered with Africa Communications Week on a multi-year study to measure the impact of narratives on Africa’s development.
- Research
Odysseys Project
Rooted in behavioral science, Odysseys is a research project that explores and promotes the belonging of Africans and Afro-descendants in multi-national, multi-gender, and multi-ethnic communities. Dr. Jessica Tollette developed a framework to understand the ways in which IE’s community can create a sense of belonging in the face of systemic inequities across nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation and socio-economic class. The framework was developed through a series of workshops and seminars with IE’s stakeholders to gather the necessary data for a toolkit.
