Our Founder, Erick Matsanza, is the winner for the 2023 Kemen Awards Non-profit Leader of the Year and steered Spice Without Borders into emerging the Gold Winner of the 2023 Digitally Fit Awards under the Community Based Organizations category.

Entrepreneurs generate revenue and jobs in the economy and are magnets of talent and resources that connect a community to embrace social change and tackle emerging problems head-on. Our founder envisioned that new entrepreneur would evolve into engaged civic leaders and pay it forward, ensuring that their backyards would have a vibrant, inclusive community.  But entrepreneurs cannot succeed in isolation. It takes a resilient chili like borderless approach. As epitomized by our very name, Spice Without Borders, our founder sought to catalyze individuals, a community, an ecosystem that embraces new ideas and innovation in their backyards. And that’s exactly what is taking place.

The Founder Erick Matsanza won a leadership scholarship to Kanthari, in South India, where he figured out on how to reverse decades of economic and social decline in western Kenya  that he had witnessed over the years due to the gaps in the mindsets of young people due to decades of political corruption and low education standards which led to an increase in crime rates by the 18 – 35 year olds becoming hopeless after their basic education.

Matsanza zoomed into these collective challenges and saw entrepreneurship as the agent of change needed to reverse the downward trend and he idealized the Spice Accelerator. On his return to Kenya, he knew at the back of his mind that if anything is going to change, it will be through action by making the baby steps towards the realization of this life transforming initiative and thus was born a movement that became Spice Without Borders. A movement of entrepreneurs, creatives, activists, initiators and innovators who are change catalysts and accelerators in their backyards. A new generation of diverse business leaders that are socially responsible and committed to supporting the local economy through their authentic business ideas.

Erick Matsanza is passionate about catalyzing social change, a social entrepreneur, a brand builder, a social change catalyst, a speaker and a mentor, Erick is a believer in diversity and inclusion and employs disruptive means in challenging the status quo at the backyard of society. He focuses on elevating brands and developing social change innovation strategies for social entrepreneurs. On a larger scale as a social initiator, Erick Matsanza idealized and founded Spice Without Borders.

Erick Matsanza’s expertise in social perspectives entail project planning and management, concept transformation, issue based awareness campaigns, branding and marketing, event planning and management, social media advocacy and has skills in fundraising. Before initiating Spice Without Borders, he co-founded Life Bridge an organization that bridges the technological divide and was a founding director at Intelsoft Limited, an Information and Communication Technology firm. He serves as the National Secretary for information and Publicity at Labour Party of Kenya, a political movement that espouses the principles of social democracy. He has also volunteered in a number of organizations across the world including Video Volunteers at their head office in Goa – India, Pawa 254 in Nairobi – Kenya, Hotel Kenrock, Kampala – Uganda.

For most of his life Erick has led a double life. By day he’s been defending human rights as an activist, as an entrepreneur, he is an information technology consultant. With Spice Without Borders, Erick has integrated these two lives where he leads his team on identifying and equipping a new generation of change leaders; activists, creatives, entrepreneurs, initiators and innovators.

Erick has developed and curated a number of initiatives that seek to empower individuals from diverse backgrounds and especially from the margins of society to build careers, business and lives that make a positive impact on the world. Some of the initiatives are;

Kilimo Accelerator; An entrepreneurial life skills boot camp for local adolescent ages 13 – 17 years.  It employs participants in producing and marketing crops, and bootstraps them with the guidance and resources they need to sell and make profit, which they can keep.

SpiceTalks: Physical meetups that aim to identify change leaders from our communities who fully understand social ills and are passionate about working towards sustainable change. The leaders creatively share their innovative social change ideas that amplify social ills.

Coffeetage: A co-working platform that offers activist, creative, entrepreneur, initiator and innovators a great opportunity for networking over coffee, allowing them to network with like minded individuals potentially leading to collaborations, partnerships, or valuable insights.

Spice Festival: A platorm that seeks to directly promote and foster equality and tolerance by bringing people together in peace and harmony for they deserve a celebration where the everyday life takes a step back and creatively reflect. Matsanza believes this will promote and stimulate a sense of active citizenship, tolerance and intercultural understanding.

These initiatives have put him at the center of accelerating social change impact and provided him with a unique perspective for understanding and influencing trends within social change innovation and entrepreneurship.

As social change catalyst and a public speaker, Erick delivers spicy keynotes, workshops, and training for conferences, nonprofits, and learning institutions on social change innovation, entrepreneurship, personal branding, community building, and millennial engagement. His training on social innovation focuses on integrating a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation into nonprofits and social enterprises.

Erick Matsanza is part of the world wide scouting movement, as a young boy he took part in the 35th Jamboree-on-the-air (JOTA). He is also is a holder of the President’s Award Kenya Silver Standard