South African and Indian innovators build a new partnership around a shared belief: world-class mobility solutions can emerge wherever people are given the opportunity to solve problems that matter.

Cape Town, South Africa / Chennai, India, September 2026 – A company born from a mother’s determination to find a better wheelchair for her daughter is joining forces with an engineering start-up born in the laboratories of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

Shonaquip Social Enterprise (ShonaquipSE) and NeoMotion have entered into a new partnership to strengthen access to innovative mobility solutions in South Africa and India, bringing together more than three decades of experience in South African assistive technology with a new generation of Indian engineering and design.

The partnership reflects a shared philosophy, that assistive technology should be designed around real lives, not simply around technical specifications, and that innovation does not need to come from the world’s traditional technology centres to be exceptional.

For ShonaquipSE, the story began in 1992, when founder Shona McDonald struggled to find appropriate equipment for her daughter Shelly, who was born with cerebral palsy. What started in a small garage workshop grew into a social enterprise that has spent more than 30 years developing mobility solutions and building the skills, services and systems needed to make assistive technology work in the real world.

NeoMotion’s story began differently, but with a strikingly similar purpose. Its founders were engineers and rehabilitation researchers at IIT Madras who encountered people living with spinal cord injuries and began asking how engineering could restore greater independence. Years of research, travel and engagement with hundreds of users led to the development of NeoFly and NeoBolt and the growth of an Indian assistive technology company with an increasingly international outlook.

“Both organisations began because someone looked at a problem and believed there had to be a better way,” says Shona McDonald, founder of ShonaquipSE. “Our journeys have been very different, but our purpose is remarkably similar. We have both learned to innovate because we have had to understand the realities of the people we serve. That creates a very strong foundation for partnership.”

The collaboration will see the organisations share their respective expertise, technologies and market experience, with NeoMotion’s mobility solutions being introduced to South Africa through ShonaquipSE, while NeoMotion supports ShonaquipSE in developing opportunities for its children’s mobility solutions in India.

But the ambition extends beyond the exchange of products.

Both organisations see the partnership as an opportunity to learn from each other’s experience of designing and delivering assistive technology in complex, diverse and resource-conscious environments, and to demonstrate what becomes possible when innovation developed in one part of the world is given the opportunity to meet another.

“India has taught us to look at constraints differently,” says Swostik Dash, co-founder of NeoMotion. “When you work close to users and understand the realities they face, constraints can become a source of innovation. That is something we see very strongly in ShonaquipSE’s journey as well.”

For NeoMotion, the partnership also marks another step in a journey from local innovation towards global impact. The company has invested heavily in understanding international user expectations and clinical requirements, working with people with lived experience and clinicians as it prepares its products for different markets.

For ShonaquipSE, the partnership opens a new chapter in its own international journey, while bringing an organisation shaped by South African realities into closer conversation with an innovator shaped by India’s.

That shared experience is significant. Assistive technology is too often viewed through a traditional north-to-south lens, with innovation flowing from established markets to countries considered primarily as recipients. 

ShonaquipSE and NeoMotion represent a different possibility: organisations rooted in their own communities, developing sophisticated solutions in response to real constraints, and increasingly sharing those solutions and expertise across borders.

“We want to change the idea that innovation has a postcode,” says McDonald. “Quality comes from understanding the problem deeply, listening to users and having the courage to keep improving. We are proud that this work is happening here, in South Africa and in India.”

Dash sees the partnership in similarly human terms.

“At the end of the day, this is not about where a product was made,” he says. “It is about whether it gives someone more freedom, more independence and more opportunity to participate in life. If we can combine what our two organisations have learned, we can help create more of those possibilities.”

The first stage of the partnership will include product training and knowledge exchange between the two teams, beginning with a visit by NeoMotion’s founder to ShonaquipSE’s South African offices.

For two organisations that began in very different places, one in a garage, one in a laboratory, the next chapter begins in the same direction: towards a world in which the ability to innovate, and the quality of the solutions that result, are not determined by geography.

About Shonaquip Social Enterprise

Shonaquip Social Enterprise (ShonaquipSE) is a South African social enterprise dedicated to enabling inclusion through assistive technology, mobility solutions and systems that support people with disabilities and their families. Founded in 1992, the organisation has more than 30 years of experience developing and delivering solutions shaped by the realities of South African communities.

Based in Cape Town, ShonaquipSE works across mobility, inclusive education, professional training, innovation development and assistive technology testing. Through its Centre for Inclusive Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Rural Assistive Devices Testing Lab, the organisation also supports the development of locally relevant solutions for resource-constrained environments.

About NeoMotion

NeoMotion is an IIT Madras-incubated assistive technology company developing transformative mobility solutions for people with disabilities and the elderly. Its flagship products, NeoFly and NeoBolt, combine personalised design, engineering and functionality to support greater mobility and independence.

Founded by engineers whose work was shaped by rehabilitation research and direct engagement with people with disabilities, NeoMotion is committed to creating affordable, user-centred solutions and expanding their impact beyond India.

Media Contact:

Shonaquip Social Enterprise
info@shonaquipse.org.za
+27 21 797 8239

NeoMotion
info@neomotion.in
+91 – 9445383599