Dear colleagues,
Happy 1st of August!
In May this year, we’ve launched Impact Hub Switzerland with five events in the five Swiss Impact Hub cities. Since then, a lot has happened within the Impact Hub Community in Switzerland and globally. Going forward, we would like to keep you up to date with short a selection of news, stories and numbers to be found at the end of this email.
This is not a newsletter, but an invitation to continue the dialogue about how to shape entrepreneurship, sustainable development, technology and the future of work in Switzerland. Please let us know in case you have any questions, requests or suggestions.
We are certainly looking forward to it.
André, Amanda, Chris and Christoph
Impact Hub Switzerland Board
Please find the following info below:
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Top Stories: Exciting recent and current activities within Impact Hub
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Coming Up Next: Interesting events and initiatives in the near future
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Impact Hub in the News: Links to recent news
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Impact Hub in Numbers: Latest numbers of Impact Hub.
1. TOP STORIES
#Impact Hub Switzerland: Circular Economy Transition
The CET Catalyzer Program, together with WWF Switzerland, ewz and reverse, awards CHF 30’000 for the best resource light business models in Switzerland. The jury includes experts from the City of Zurich. Furthermore, the teams in Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, and Zurich are currently building the second edition of the CE Incubator Program. The incubator is funded by MAVA Foundation, and supported by UBS for the upcoming edition.
#Member Story: Labster has raised a 21M CHF Series B
Impact Hub member, Labster, builds virtual laboratory simulations for STEM students. The company has just raised their Series B round securing 21M CHF from Europe’s top investors including Swisscom Ventures. “STEM-related careers are increasingly becoming both more in demand and also more important than ever before,” Labster co-founder and CEO Michael Bodekaer, who’s based at Impact Hub Zürich, “however, most students will never have access to expensive, high-tech labs, or have enough time in the lab to learn critical skills they’ll need.” Labster already serves over 150 schools and universities reaching more than 200’000 students across the globe with the technology for state-of-the-art STEM education. (#SDG4)
#Impact Hub Basel: Space Construction
Impact Hub Basel is busy building the future Impact Hub Basel Community Coworking, Event Space, and Zero Waste inspired Café! This #SpaceRebuildingJourney is filled with co-creation initiatives together with the community and partners. One of the valued volunteers of Impact Hub Basel, Nini Zhang, created and designed an Interior Herb Garden as a concept idea for the Zero Waste inspired Café.
#Impact Hub Bern: Start of Youngpreneurs-Program
The third generation of Youngpreneurs-Program has just started. Participants from six Bernese Gymnasiums are working in an election course on their first startup ideas and are accompanied on their development over eight months. The program started in 2017 with the Gymasium Neufeld and 16 students and continues to grow constantly – this year, there are 42 students in two classes participating.
#Impact Hub Geneva & Lausanne: Accelerate2030 program running
The global scaling Accelerate2030 is in it’s 3rd edition. The program, in partnership with 15 Impact Hubs and UNDP offices around the world, aims at growing the impact of sustainable businesses from developing countries through a one year support program. Currently, national finalists from all countries are participating in a local scaling program. Soon, the international finalists are chosen by an international jury and invited to Geneva for the SDG Factory, a bootcamp week of workshops and coaching sessions to kickstart the yearly support program. During this week in October there are a number of opportunities for you to meet the ventures.
#Impact Hub Zürich: Kickstarting Ecosystem Innovation in Switzerland
Kickstart has selected a whopping 48 Tech Startups and Scale-Ups and 9 Intrapreneurship Teams to partner with over 50 mature companies and institutions in Switzerland – from large corporates, to SMEs, municipal departments, research institutions, universities and foundations. The Impact Hub Zürich spin-off has thus become Switzerland’s largest Ecosystem Innovation Plattform to foster innovation projects and partnerships between international and Swiss players.
2. COMING UP NEXT
August 22: Impact Hub Basel is participating in the Ziel Zukunft Biennale with an event about Circular Fashion – Designing the Future. Ziel Zukunft Biennale is a festival initiated by sun21 and advocates a fun and responsible shaping of economic progress in harmony with environmental protection and social justice.
August 30: Romandie launch event of Circular Economy Switzerland, organized by Impact Hub Lausanne, with active participation of our Swiss-wide initiative Circular Economy Transition
September 3: All Swiss Impact Hubs participate at the national Digital Day 2019 with events in Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, Lugano and Zurich! The events, in partnership with Stiftung Mercator Schweiz, welcome over 250 citizens to share their hopes and concerns about digitalization and artificial intelligence. Our local partners include staatslabor, Personalized Health Basel, DayOne, Sketchin and Città di Lugano.
September 5: Impact Hub Zürich facilitates the Solve for Tomorrow program, together with Samsung and differencelab. In three workshops, participants from the civic sphere are encouraged to become social entrepreneurs themselves and develop ideas to #SDG10, reducing inequalities and fostering better inclusion of minorities in our society
September 23: In the week of September 23, there is a coworking week in Basel. All current and potential coworkers are invited to join the caravan and experience all the different coworking spaces in Basel. Impact Hub Basel is part of the Coworking Caravan and is excited to open the doors to the public for the very first time during that week.
October 25/26: Impact Hubs in Zürich, Geneva, Lausanne, and Basel facilitate the Climathon 2019, in collaboration with Climate-KIC.The 24-hour climate action hackathon takes place simultaneously in major cities around the world. Citizens around the world can take direct climate action by coming up with innovative solutions to local climate challenges.
3. IMPACT HUB IN THE NEWS
economiesuisse
«Zirkulärer Schub in der Schweizer Wirtschaft» (29.7.2019)
BDO-Zoom
«Wir schaffen viele Gelegenheiten zum Vernetzen» (17.7.2019)
hello zurich
‘To tell you the truth, we’re a clan’ (9.7.2019)
Netzwoche
«Coworking – wo die Laptops glühen und Ideen sprühen» (19.6.2019)
Innovation Basel
«Am 15. Mai 2019 wurde die Impact Hub Switzerland Association gegründet» (24.05.2019)
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Die Zürcher Startup-Szene hat frische Ideen für das Kasernenareal (17.5.2019)
Handelszeitung
“Die traditionelle Ökonomie funktioniert nicht” (14.5.2019)
4. IMPACT HUB IN NUMBERS
Active Members: 1’700 in CH // 18’000 globally
Number of Hubs: 5 in CH // 103 globally
Number of spaces: 7 in CH // 130 globally
Square meters: 5’200 in CH // 84’800 m2 globally
Team size: 180 team members (82 FTEs) in Switzerland
New jobs (p.a.): 2’352 new FTEs created in the Swiss Impact Hub community in 2018
