IMPACT HUB GLOBAL NETWORK
Our Vision: A just and sustainable world where business and profit are used in service of people and planet.
We believe a better world is created through the combined accomplishments of compassionate, creative, and committed individuals focused on a common purpose.
From Amsterdam to Johannesburg, Singapore to San Francisco, Impact Hub has evolved into a rapidly expanding global network of over 17,000 members in 100+ locations. Each community is a wealth of innovative programs, events, and cutting-edge content. As a Connect or Core Member of Impact Hub Houston, you’re welcome to visit any Impact Hub worldwide and immerse yourself in the local experience of a global movement.
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What is Impact Hub?
An innovation lab. A business Incubator. A social enterprise community center. Impact Hub offers you a unique ecosystem of resources, inspiration, and collaboration opportunities to grow the positive impact of your work. Joining our diverse community of members and collaborators will inspire, connect, and enable you to develop your best work every step of the way.
The Impact Hub experience has three core components:
Inspired programming with meaningful content, thought-provoking events, innovation labs, and opportunities for learning and positive impact.
A vibrant community of passionate, entrepreneurial peers who want to connect, cross-pollinate ideas and develop impactful ventures.
Empowering resources that offer flexible infrastructure for social innovators to productively work, meet, learn and collaborate.
What does Impact Hub do?
We present opportunities to solve the world’s most pressing issues and provide programs to co-create the future of business. Get an idea of our scope from our peers at Impact Hub Bradford:
Startup Support
Startups have proven to be dynamic and powerful vehicles for solutions with truly transformative impact. Entrepreneurs need support throughout their challenging journeys: Even the most effective startups with the best solutions need support to reach significant scale. Access to market and financing is key for their growth, especially for disadvantaged entrepreneurs in markets that demand a high level of resilience.
Example: Accelerate2030
Co-created by Impact Hub Geneva and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Accelerate2030 (A2030) is a global program for positive social and environmental impact. A2030 works with Impact Hubs in developing countries to source, select, and scale the most innovative and impactful ventures tackling the Global SDGs. We bring finalists to Geneva, connect them to leading international organizations and investors, and support them for 9 months. Starting from the bottom up, A2030 has already reached over 1 million people in 19 countries.
Institutional Innovation
Established institutions and corporations face an urgent need to innovate in a world that is evolving faster than ever before. Entrepreneurs have become an important source of inspiration and learning for leading organizations in new ways of thinking, designing solutions and products, and operating in constantly-changing environments. Impact Hub immerses institutional partners in thriving entrepreneurial ecosystems, giving them access to hundreds of high-potential enterprises, innovations, sustainability methods, tools, and experts.
Example: Corporate Partnerships
Impact Hub Zurich boosts innovation with multi-level corporate and institutional partnerships. For major telecommunication player Swisscom, they created an intrapreneurship program, coaching the company’s future leaders, providing them with lean work methodologies, and connecting them to startups for bottom-up innovation. Swiss candy company Ricola dared to go a step further with them. Together they built the RicoLAB, which focuses on long-term innovation. Today, it operates as an independent organization, not just driving innovation for Ricola but setting trends using groundbreaking technologies like AI and VR.
Ecosystem Development
Impact cannot happen in isolation: It takes shape in interdependent, lively ecosystems comprised of diverse actors, inspiring interactions, enabling policies, and varied resources. Impact Hub provides collaborative environments where many, if not all, of these elements come together. Even in some of the most challenged parts of the world, we provide a safe space for the foundation of ecosystems where minimal infrastructural support exists.
Example: Africa Seed Program
In 2014, Impact Hub identified local entrepreneurs across Sub-Saharan Africa who believed that their entrepreneurial ecosystems needed local ownership and drive. Since 2015, we’ve worked with eight high-caliber teams from Burundi, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, who have developed active entrepreneurial communities, successfully built accessible workspaces, and run dozens of programs and events. As of 2017, Impact Hubs in Africa have supported more than 1,100 local entrepreneurs, and our community keeps growing.
Learning & Education
We need to build awareness and share stories that inspire and engage people to action, including the youth who will shape our future. We also need to explore trends and share best practices that can be applied to improving systems.
Example: Impact Hub Escola
Since 2010, this educational program has strived to change the world as we know it by putting social innovation into practice. Its collaborative model is hands-on, focused on dynamic learning-by-doing around specific topics. Brazil’s biggest innovation and workshops festival, this program has hosted 10,000+ youth at 15 events so far, and has expanded into five Brazilian cities.