Enabling Impact Entrepreneurship Leadership Programme (Funded) – Opportunity Desk

Deadline: May 31, 2024

Applications are for the Impact Pioneers ’24: Enabling Impact Entrepreneurship Leadership Programme. 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 firsthand 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 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.

Programme Components:

• Online networking, sharing and masterclass sessions (weekly, starting late August/early September). Networking and sharing sessions will be conducted online in both large and small group formats (organised by region and mixed). Other than the social element, they will include case sharing and high-quality masterclasses, highlighting latest developments within the field of impact entrepreneurship, sustainable development and green transition. These sessions aim to offer participants new perspectives, cases, tools and frameworks that will strengthen their impact entrepreneurship management skills.
• Sweden week, onsite (October 21-25, excluding travel days). During this week, programme participants will gather in Stockholm Sweden. The week will be an interactive and immersive onsite experience, offering a unique opportunity to network with peers and engage with Swedish impact entrepreneurship leaders and experts. The week will feature workshops, field visits to leading innovation hubs and impact entrepreneurship environments in Stockholm. This experience aims to strengthen participants’ impact entrepreneurship network, and create new connections with the Swedish entrepreneurship ecosystem. Participation in Sweden week is exclusive to participants who have successfully completed the programme’s previous components.
• Way forward. In the final component of Impact Pioneers, participants make a plan on how to put their new skills and network into action. They share new perspectives, cases, tools and frameworks with colleagues and stakeholders in their local ecosystems, develop ideas for future partnerships across the international peer group and establish further relationships with the Swedish embassy and related network in their home country.

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.
• Participation in Impact Pioneers is free of charge. The Swedish institute arranges and covers costs related to:
  • Learning programme
  • Flights to and from Sweden for the Sweden week onsite visit
  • Accommodation, meals, transportation and insurance while in Sweden

Eligibility

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, they 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.

Application

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. 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 the application portal (provided by Dreamapply): Impact Pioneers ’24 – Application form

Selected applicants will receive an acceptance letter no later than July 8.

For more information, visit Impact Pioneers ’24.