We are pleased to announce our Hero Spotlight of the Month: Shona McDonald, ABH 2022 Top 10 Hero and Founder and Director of Shonaquip Social Enterprise (ShonaquipSE), a South African hybrid social enterprise transforming the lives of children and adults with disabilities through locally designed and manufactured assistive technology, inclusive education, and community empowerment programmes.
ShonaquipSE's mission is to enable children, youth, and adults with disabilities to participate fully in family, education, work, and community life. Founded in 1992, the organisation has grown from two people working out of Shona's garage into Africa's leading ISO 13485-certified provider of paediatric wheelchairs and therapeutic seating, with a team of over 75 technicians, seamstresses, therapists, and community workers operating across 12 countries. Today, ShonaquipSE's programmes reach more than 350,000 lives annually, spanning product design and manufacturing, outreach seating clinics, inclusive early childhood development, parent champion networks, workforce training, and corporate inclusion services.
What makes Shona's story extraordinary is that it began at home. When her daughter Shelly was born with cerebral palsy, Shona found herself confronting a system that had nothing to offer. Unable to find an appropriate mobility device, she drew on her background as a sculptor to design one herself. That first act of determined, user-centred problem solving became the foundation of an enterprise that has never stopped asking the same essential question: what does this person actually need, and how do we build it? Shonaquip's devices are designed around African users and African environments, manufactured locally with over 90 percent local content, and built to be modular, repairable, and affordable. The organisation reinvests all surpluses into its social mission and deliberately employs people with disabilities, who make up 25 percent of its team.
ShonaquipSE's ambitions extend well beyond production. Through its Centre for Inclusive Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), Shona is building South Africa's only dedicated end-to-end incubator for assistive technology innovators guiding entrepreneurs from first prototype through to market entry, backed by an impact fund targeting R50 million to R150 million. The organisation holds formal partnerships with the WHO, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, the International Society of Wheelchair Professionals, and multiple African governments, and has exported its models to partners in Ethiopia, Tanzania, India, and the United Kingdom. Shona has been recognised as a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year and received the SAB Foundation Social Innovation Award, and her participation in ABH 2022; selected from over 21,000 applicants across all 54 African countries, brought the first-ever South African entrant into the ABH Top 10, earning a grant that has since been channelled directly into ShonaquipSE's growth and export strategy.
Beyond her work with established organisations and governments, Shona is actively looking to connect with the next generation of African assistive technology innovators. Through the CIIE, ShonaquipSE offers an end-to-end pathway from first prototype to market-ready product for students, local AT users, and family members who have quietly been designing solutions that help people with disabilities function better in their everyday lives. Because as Shona has always believed, imported products seldom account for the realities of African environments, lifestyles, and user needs. The solutions that truly work are the ones designed here, tested here, and made here. ShonaquipSE's growing suite of programmes including outreach seating clinics, the RAD Lab product testing facility, healthcare provider training, and the LTD@Work corporate inclusion service exists to prove exactly that. If you are an innovator with an idea, a prototype, or a lived experience that has led you to a solution, Shona and the CIIE team want to hear from you.
Congratulations to Shona and the entire ShonaquipSE team for their extraordinary achievements in assistive technology innovation, disability inclusion, African manufacturing, and ecosystem building across the continent.
To learn more visit:
https://www.shonaquipse.org.za
