The month opened with our Social Enterprise Bootcamp in Mpigi, and it was intense in the best way. This was not entrepreneurship as theory. People joined real early-stage SINA social enterprise teams, worked directly with customers, questioned assumptions, adjusted their offers, and pushed toward problem-solution fit, prototypes, pricing, and first revenues. What made it even stronger was the mix of people in the room, with participants from many different SINA Communities and 12 countries across four continents.

For the first time, we also welcomed individual international participants from the UK, Germany, Italy, the USA, and South Africa. Each joined one social enterprise team for the week and became part of the real work behind testing ideas and shaping growth. Their reflections captured that well. Esra Kucukciftci called it “work worth doing” and praised the founders’ “unparalleled market wisdom.” Bex Hewett described the week as “life changing” and wrote that seeing SINA in practice “changed my perspective entirely.” We will have a similar bootcamp coming up in June.

Then Mpigi filled up again for Impact Week Uganda 2026 at Jangu International. From March 4 to 12, with the Train-the-Coach phase followed by the challenge week, Impact Week brought together participants from 16 countries. The programme set out to equip 24 local and international Junior Coaches and 75 young challenge participants with Design Thinking skills to work on real community challenges. This diversity brought high quality to the week. Different backgrounds, different instincts, different ways of asking questions, and suddenly the learning goes deeper because nobody is coming from exactly the same place.

Also in March, the SINA Global team, made up of 14 members from different SINA Communities and replicators and Nomads, met in Jinja for a retreat. Some of the most important work in a growing movement is quiet work, the kind that does not make for many photos but shapes everything that comes next. We used the time to reflect honestly on what SINA needs now: stronger shared systems, strong human connection between the 23 locations across 9 countries, better documentation, clearer learning loops across communities, and more financial resilience so the ecosystem can keep growing.

And then Zambia started. Our newest SINA Community in Lusaka began with its pioneer scholars on March 30th after an intensive replication journey, and it builds on the partnership with Circus Zambia.

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An experienced SINA Nomad, Confidence Akampurira, who already supported the startup phase of SINA in Nigeria in 2025, joined on ground in January. The initial pioneer scholars started the first personal development phase of the SINA Framework yesterday. We are grateful for the support of the Lufthansa help alliance and the Leopold Bachmann Foundation for the support, making this possible.

The youth will now go through three months of deep personal development, self-discovery, and mindset shift. During this phase, they will work on overcoming limiting beliefs, building confidence, identifying their purpose, and strengthening the character and inner foundation needed to become changemakers. From there, they will gradually step into practical roles within the new SINA Community, take responsibility for real tasks, learn by doing, and co-create a self-organized learning space together. Over time, they will develop the skills, experiences, and ownership needed to support other young people locally and to turn challenges in their communities into solutions and social enterprises, which create jobs also for others.

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We bring together 8 – 10 early-stage social enterprises from different SINA communities (from Uganda and other African countries). Each enterprise already has a clear social or environmental problem they solve and a working solution. The bootcamp is the week where the enterprise accelerates and scales its impact. Teams work hands-on through business diagnostics, financial forecasting, business model design and lots of practical and fun activities. It all ends with a final pitch vent to an external panel of judges.

Dates and flow

• Location: Mpigi, Uganda at our main SINA Community “Jangu International”
• Arrival: Sunday, June 14 (anytime), the airport is “Entebbe”, 90 minutes from Mpigi
• Bootcamp:  June 15 (8:30 am start) to Friday 19 June (full days)
• Saturday/ Sunday June 20 -21: departure or optional visits nearby: e.g. established SINA enterprises, the Equator, primary forest, birdwatching on Lake Victoria

Your role as an international participant
You’re in the team. You help with customer conversations, shaping the offer, prototyping, testing pricing, doing the uncomfortable learning loops, and supporting the team to move fast. Evenings are informal and relational, the days are very practical.

We’re aiming for 8 internationals with diverse backgrounds and skills, one per enterprise team, so spots are limited.

Cost and what’s included
Participation fee: 575 € (670 USD)

It covers (simple but comfortable) accommodation, full board at SINA Village in Mpigi and airport pickup and drop-off. It further helps to cover local operations and travel for teams coming from other SINA communities. Flights, visas, insurance, and personal travel costs are not included

Testimonies from previous participants:
– Bex (UK)
– Esra (USA)

How to join:
Email etienne@socialinnovationacademy.org and confirm your interest without needing to commit. We’ll set a call to walk you through the details, answer questions, and confirm your spot. See you in Uganda!

Your SINA Team

Here the information again in a flyer form

The post Join Our Social Enterprise Acceleration Bootcamp June 14 – 19, 2026 in Uganda appeared first on SINA (Social Innovation Academy).

The paper looks at how place-based and experiential learning can support creative problem-solving, collaboration across cultures, and the development of social innovation projects. It also reflects honestly on challenges such as communication across contexts and complex group dynamics, which makes it a thoughtful contribution to the wider conversation on design education and learning in real-world settings.

The paper is based on a longer collaboration that brought design students from Pakistan to Uganda in two early phases, first in December 2017 and then again from June to July 2018, each time with a new group of students learning alongside SINA scholars in Mpigi. A third phase followed in 2019 at SINA, this time bringing together students from Pakistan and Nigeria, which gave the project a broader cross-cultural dimension and helped shape the reflections presented in the paper.

Read the full paper at:

https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1583&context=learnxdesign

The post New Academic Paper Explores Place-based Learning in Partnership with SINA appeared first on SINA (Social Innovation Academy).

That changes something deep. A young person who has been told to wait, to fit in, or to lower their expectations begins to see that they can create work, lead others, and solve real problems in their community. That is where hope becomes concrete and shaping a prosperous future. Across 23 SINA Communities, young people from disadvantaged backgrounds have gone on to build more than 130 social enterprises and create over 2,000 jobs. Those numbers matter, but they are only part of the story. What they really point to is a different way of learning, one that treats young people as capable from the beginning and finding their purpose in line and taking action to live out the purpose, regardless if they start their own social enterprise or not.

Read the full article here: https://hundred.org/en/articles/youth-need-hope-and-control-over-their-own-education

We are grateful to HundrED for recognizing SINA also under the Global 100 Collection of 2026 and for helping bring more attention to education models that trust youth with real ownership.

The post HundrED highlights SINA’s youth-led approach to education appeared first on SINA (Social Innovation Academy).

Starting in June 2026 with a 6 months learning journey in Uganda and in January 2027, we will open SINA in Berlin, a self-organised learning and entrepreneurship community for disadvantaged young people in Berlin, joining our growing movement of currently 23+ SINA Communities. It is a big step for us, because it brings the SINA Framework into a German context with all the opportunity, diversity, and difficulties.

Right now, we are looking for two Community Starters, also called Replicators or “Changemaker-Makers”. They will co-found SINA Berlin from the inside. This is not a typical job, see below and help us spread the word.

SINA Berlin – Ausschreibung für Changemaker-Makers (German)

SINA Berlin – Call for Changemaker-makers (English)

The post SINA Is Starting a Community in Germany – Call for Replicators (“Changemaker-Makers”) appeared first on SINA (Social Innovation Academy).

The bootcamp brings together 7 to 8 early-stage social enterprises from SINA communities in Uganda and other African countries. Participation is limited to a small cohort of internationals to ensure depth of experience and close collaboration. A few spots are still available. Participation closes once the cohort is complete. Reach out to etienne@socialinnovationacademy.org, if you wish to secure your spot. All details below:

The post SINA Social Enterprise Bootcamp, Uganda (February 24 to March 3, 2026) appeared first on SINA (Social Innovation Academy).

The event was designed as a space to listen, reflect, and learn from one another. Community founders shared how new SINA spaces are taking shape on the ground, often in places marked by displacement, unemployment, or limited access to education. Social entrepreneurs spoke about the realities of building enterprises that respond directly to local needs, from health and care to food systems and youth livelihoods.

Throughout the sessions, one theme was clear: transformation happens when people are trusted with responsibility and supported to act on their own purpose. Across different contexts, we heard how young people are turning personal challenges into solutions that serve their communities, and how learning by doing creates confidence that no classroom alone can offer.

To capture the essence of this gathering, we created a 24-minute highlight video. It weaves together voices, moments, and reflections from the day. It offers a glimpse into what it means to grow the SINA ecosystem together:

The post Highlights from our Changemaker-maker Event across 5 new SINAs and 4 Social Enterprises appeared first on SINA (Social Innovation Academy).

The first piece centres on a new animated video that explains the SINA ecosystem in under 5 minutes.

In the second article, Corporate Rebels break down the five development stages that take a scholar from feeling totally disoriented to becoming a confident social entrepreneur.

At the heart of it stands “freesponsibility.“ The idea that freedom doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it only grows as fast as your willingness to take responsibility. The big takeaway from both pieces is that self-management isn’t just about “letting go” and hoping for the best. It requires a very intentional design in which freedom and consequences go hand in hand. If you’ve ever wondered how these models actually survive the messy reality of daily work, these are well worth a read.

You can check the two articles out here:

• Animated Video: How SINA Works (and How It Built 120 Social Enterprises Without Managers)
• The Five Development Stages to Make Self-Management Thrive

The post Self-Management is not about Freedom, but about “Freesponsibility” | SINA in the Corporate Rebels Blog appeared first on SINA (Social Innovation Academy).

Thank you to all the speakers, moderators, viewers and supporters!

Chapters:
00:00 Official Event Start & Welcome (Happy Giving Tuesday)
07:45 How SINA Works – Animated Video by Corporate Rebels
12:50 Mary on the 5-Stage SINA Framework
17:34 John on the Replication Journey
23:55 Hope Innovation Academy (Kathmandu, Nepal)
48:18 BabyKit (Bidibidi Refugee Settlement, Uganda)
01:13:09 Highlights from 2024 (Part 1)
01:27:46 The Purpose Safari (International Program)
01:33:14 Kiroto Innovation Academy (Mityana, Uganda)
02:04:08 SINA’s 10-Year Celebration
02:18:36 Kulisha Organics (Kampala, Uganda)
02:40:44 Dikko Social Innovation Academy (Katsina, Nigeria)
03:20:23 Highlights from 2024 (Part 2)
03:32:08 Green at Mind (Kakuma Refugee Settlement, Kenya)
03:58:08 SINA Training of Trainers (ToT) Bootcamp
04:02:17 Twero (Palabek Refugee Settlement, Uganda)
04:36:51 Vital Care Connect (Mpigi, Uganda)
05:05:32 Ikaze Innovation Academy (Gashora, Rwanda)
05:35:18 Highlights from 2024 (Part 3)
05:48:42 Social Impact Award and SINA Acceleration Program East
06:04:50 Final Closing Remarks

The post The SINA 6-Hour Livestream Event Showcases Deep Impact from Nepal to Uganda, Highlighting Youth-Led Solutions to Global Challenges appeared first on SINA (Social Innovation Academy).