eWAKA today announced that 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.
Also read: eWAKA launches Green Response to Africa’s Expanding Transportation Requirements
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.
Also read: Mobility Startup eWaka receives $541k Loan from SECO
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.
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