Twende Social Innovation Center

A proud moment for the Twende community 🏆

Earlier this month, the Twende team attended the 12th HARAMBEE Start-Up Evening in Arusha where Twende alumni Awadhi Massomo and the .tz team were voted the winners of the night!

Through Kikapu, the team is building practical solutions that connect farmers to markets while creating value from agricultural waste. Awadhi’s Cocopeat Machine helps process coconut husks into cocopeat and fibre products that can improve soil health and support more sustainable farming practices.

Seeing innovators take ideas developed through Ideate Arusha and continue growing them into community-driven businesses is exactly why programmes like this matter.

Congratulations to the kikapu team, and thank you to and Embassy of the Netherlands in Tanzania for continuing to support Tanzania’s growing innovation ecosystem.

Most education systems aren’t built for everyone.

For visually impaired learners, access is still limited and that’s a problem Philbert Shio chose to solve.

Through IREN, he’s building assistive tools that make learning accessible from early childhood to university. With support from Twende, he refined his idea into a market-ready solution and is now manufacturing through Porto Limited.

This is what happens when the right idea meets the right environment.
If you’re still thinking about joining Twende, you’re delaying your own growth.
Start building.

A lot of ideas never go anywhere.

Not because they’re bad, but because there’s no space, tools, or support to build them.

So they stay ideas.

At Twende, we’re changing that.

What started as a space to learn and build has grown into:
214+ innovations
6,528 jobs
215,000+ people reached

Behind every number is something real tools people use, businesses growing, and ideas that didn’t stop halfway.

You can see some of that in these photos.

And it’s still open.

If you’ve been thinking about building something this might be your sign.