Are you dedicated to nurturing and growing the ecosystem for impact entrepreneurship? Impact Pioneers is a leadership programme that welcomes you to exchange experiences with an international network of peers and gain first hand insights and experience from Sweden’s most successful impact entrepreneurship leaders and environments. The programme mixes online learning modules with a one-week onsite summit in Stockholm.
Impact entrepreneurship refers to the efforts to create, develop, and sustain new business that pursue environmental and/or social goals as an integral part of the business model, along with financial success. It is a global phenomenon in many ways rewriting the rules of traditional business with its much broader and bolder ambition. It is a potential driver of both economic and social development, as well as a force that can help accelerate the global green transition. If nurtured and empowered, it has great potential to bring forward new businesses needed today and in the future, bringing sustainable innovation, growth and jobs to local communities.
Impact Pioneers’24 seeks to strengthen leaders and enablers working in organisations and networks that want to promote the nurture and growth of local impact entrepreneurship. The programme aims to grow participants skillset through exchange of experiences, perspectives, cases, tools and frameworks. A central component of the programme is also networking across an international cohort of peers and with the Swedish impact entrepreneurship ecosystem. This component is key, as is the programme hopes to plant seeds for future partnerships, to the benefit of impact startups and scaleups as they seek to expand their growth, reach and overall impact.
The longterm programme objective is connected the SDG 8, target 8.3, which includes promotion of activities and policies that support entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation to encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and mediumsized enterprises, ultimately contributing to job creation and sustainable economic, social and environmental development.
Eligibility Criteria
The application is open to entrepreneurship ecosystem leaders and practitioners who work in organizations and networks that want to develop their support for entrepreneurs with businesses related to sustainablility and green transition. More specifially, we imagine applicants to work as:
- Startup hub/accelerator/incubation founders and managers
- Tech and innovation hub founders and managers
- University accelerator/incubator managers
- Public sector employees involved in work that supports impact entrepreneurship
The application is open to 22 programme countries (applicants must be a citizen and resident of one of them):
AFRICA: Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa, Zambia
ASIA: Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam
EUROPE: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine*
*Ukrainian applicants who reside outside of Ukraine are also eligible to apply.
Applicants must meet the following requirements:
- Be a citizen and resident of one of the 22 programme countries
- Work in an organisation or business systematically working to nurture and grow entrepreneurs.
- Have the mandate to develop new international partnerships for your organisation/business.
- Have a good working knowledge of both written and spoken English.
- Be willing to actively participate, provide support and share their experience and knowledge with other participants.
- Have identified opportunities and challenges that could be worked on during the programme to help their organisation improve its contribution to the local entrepreneurship ecosystem
An applicant’s home organisation/business must also meet the following requirements:
- Be locally owned and based in one of the programme countries.
- Be somehow hosting/coaching (or be in the process of starting up hosting/coaching of) entrepreneurs with business ideas that are related to sustainability and green transition.
- Run the organization/business with focus on contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals.
Offered Benefits
Impact Pioneers offers participants the opportunity to:
- Grow from the exchange of experiences with an international community of peers.
- Be supported and inspired by new insights from the Impact entrepreneurship and Impact innovation forefront, such as practical cases, tools and frameworks.
- Get first-hand experience of the Impact entrepreneurship community in Stockholm, recognised as one of the leading ecosystems in the impact entrepreneurship domain.
- Build long-term relations with Swedish foreign missions and Swedish Impact entrepreneurs that seek to expand their international reach, growth and impact.
Application Process
Go to Swedish Institute on apply-leadership-programmes.si.se to apply
Only applicants who have submitted a complete application will be considered for the programme.
The application consists of questions to assess formal requirements along with personal motivation. You will also be asked to submit a 60-120 second video and upload your most recent resume/CV.
Please carefully review the application overview, in order to be best prepared to submit your application. The overview gathers all questions and requirements in one place.
Once you have reviewed the application overview and prepared, you should submit your application through our application portal (provided by Dreamapply): Impact Pioneers ’24 – Application form
These are the steps you need to go through to submit your application:
- Register your profile in the application portal (DreamApply)
- Select ‘Impact Pioneers ’24:Enabling Impact entrepreneurship’ as the programme you would like to apply for (open for application 1 May – 31 May (23:59 CET).
- Click on the “Apply Now!” button, and answer the questions for the different sections (found in the left-hand menu). Please review the application overview document beforehand to know what questions to expect.
- As part of the process, be ready to upload a short pre-recorded video and your most recent resume/CV as per the instructions in the portal. Please review the application overview document beforehand to ensure this will be a smooth process for you.
- After you’ve submitted your application, you’ll receive a confirmation to your inbox in the application portal (DreamApply).
