Synopsis: Is a semester long program designed for highschool students, to introduce them with the idea of innovation generation and to broaden their vision by showing that they can be part of innovation generation too.
Challenge: Our aim was to equip the highschool students with the hard and soft skills they need like “3D Modeling, Coding, Design Thinking, Problem Oriented View, Mindfulness, Growth Mindset, Personal Development and Creativity” , in order to shorten the gap between innovation ecosystem and young highschool students we conducted an extensive learning program. Upon the completion of the program, the students were asked to make a prototype of their product and test it using the maker tools we provided.
Trasformation: During 6 weeks the students had the chance to focus on many subjects, the program consisted soft and hard skill training where students first imbibed team working and other self-enriching skills like mindfulness, active listening. At this stage students were asked to developed a project to solve a problem in their everyday life using design thinking techniques. proceeding stage of the program consisted 15-20 hours of tech-oriented training where students had the chance to work with real equipments like 3D printer to produce a prototype of their project. at the end they had to chance to present their accomplisments to Pirelli board, improving their public speaking skills.
Impact:
The following hard and soft skills were provided to the participating students by following the design thinking steps and the educational contents; organizational skills, self-discipline, confidence, oral presentation, giving feedback, brainstorming, leadership, teamwork empathy, growth mindset, optimism, creativity, problem solving, observation skills, teamwork, awareness, strategy formulation, asking right questions, open-mindedness, research and analyzing. These skills were mainly focused on making the students more creative and innovative instead of an end-product focused approach. The skills that students acquire will be beneficial to them through their lives.
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Partner: Anadolu Efes, UNDP
Synopsis: Accelerate2030 is a program co-initiated by Impact Hub Geneva and the UNDP, with a mission to scale internationally the impact of entrepreneurs working towards achieving positive social and environmental change contributing to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Challenge: Because we believe that a paradigm shift towards sustainable business practices is underway, our aim was to enable entrepreneurs to integrate sustainable corporate culture through our leadership coaching. We believe that the future of business relies on sustainable business practices, and a sustainable environment can only be maintaned with the collaboration of those business practices, thereby it is vital for impact-driven entrepreneurs to interiorize UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Transformation: Through this program entrepreneurs have participated … workshops and …… hours of education, they better understood the concept of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and got the tools to implement the sustainable development goals to their venture, stepping one step forward by embracing sustainable corporate culture.
Impact:
Partner: Girişimcilik Vakfı, GIZ
Synopsis: Build Your Future aims to help aspiring Syrian entrepreneurs develop their ideas and come up with more concrete solutions to problems they have detected, and turn them into sustainable businesses. Each training consisted of different teaching materials to cover with guest speakers and mentors.
Challenge: To provide Syrians living in Turkey with a step-by-step methodology to systematically establish their enterprise and gain entrepreneurship skills, provide them the necessary tools to ensure that they can sustain their company, inform them about the legal rules and regulations and how to market their product.
Transformation: The program consisted of 1 Info Session, 3 Meetup Sessions , 2 Ideathons, 1 Bootcamp and a pitching night. The Ideathons were 1 day long intense workshops with creative idea generation exercises and the milestone for becoming an entrepreneur. The modules included activities that adapted Liberating Structures methodology. After the ideathons, selected group of entrepreneurs proceeded to an intensive training (Bootcamp). The aim of the training was to help the participating immigrants to envision the future of their ideas, identify the foundational assumptions that underpin their ideas, design and run experiments to validate or invalidate those foundational assumptions through customer discovery, understand the basics of communication skills, understand the fundamentals of creating a financial and strategic plan, engage with world-class mentors and understand the effective methods to tell their story to potential partners and investors. The whole training’s format was structured such that the “trainers” positioned themselves as facilitators, not lecturers. This way, Impact Hub team along with the program organizers and mentors, could walk on the same entrepreneurial journey with the entrepreneurs instead of being lecturers who provide specific technical skills for a short period of time.
Impact: The intensive training ensured that the participants acquired the necessary skill sets in order to turn their enterprises into sustainable and profitable businesses. The hard and soft skills were provided to them by using tools like design thinking steps, theory of change, lean canvas etc. and with continuous mentoring support. After the trainings, the participants learned how to change an idea into a product. The program also helped the Syrian entrepreneurs to get to know each other and experienced mentors from related sectors and helped the formation of a new ecosystem of Syrian peers.