Imagine an economy in which entrepreneurship is not about the quickest possible exit but the greatest lasting value. An economy in which a company’s societal purpose comes before the maximization of private wealth. What at first may sound like a daydream is the reality of many purpose-driven companies today. These companies re-imagined their company’s deep design. Now, they cannot be sold for personal profit. Investors are financing partners rather than co-owners, and control rests with the people most suited for stewarding the company.

In this session, we invite participants to (re)think ownership and discover ways to embed purpose and independence into the very DNA of a company – its ownership structure. You’ll learn about the concept of steward-ownership and explore why and how purpose-driven companies – like Stapelstein, Wildplastic, and Patagonia – are embracing this approach to align ownership with their values.

“It Starts with a Decision” is an interactive and semi-methodical workshop where the following key topics are applied:

– Check-in: What percent are you here? Can we build a decision-making system? What we know about decision-making?
– 3E System: Exploring decision-making through Economic, Ecologic, and Emotional lenses.
– 5 Whys Exercise: Participants will select a decision to explore deeply using the “5 Whys” technique to uncover root causes and insights.
– Exploration: We examine decision-making through different perspectives, such as the Pinball model and the Hero’s Journey.
– Self-Reflection & Harvest: Conclude with a personal reflection on what you’ve learned about your decision-making process.

This workshop offers various exercises to deepen understanding of how we make choices and how we can improve that process.

Turn your vision into a fundable plan in this interactive session led by experts. Learn how to transform your goals into clear financial projections, explore diverse funding sources—from bootstrapping and grants to equity and mezzanine finance—and practice crafting a winning pitch. With hands-on exercises and expert advice, this session is designed to give you the tools and confidence to secure the funding your venture needs to thrive.

Are you reaching the right customers? Is your revenue model working as hard as you are? In this 90-minute workshop, we’ll get real about the financial risks in your impact business and uncover fresh ways to keep it thriving.

Join us for an interactive session where you’ll team up with other entrepreneurs to take a hard look at your revenue streams, customer strategy, and potential pivot points. You’ll share your approach, get honest (but constructive!) feedback, and brainstorm creative fixes—whether that means tweaking your customer base, finding alternative income sources, or streamlining your strategy to survive financial pressures.

It’s all about finding practical ways to stay afloat, make an impact, and set your business up for long-term success.

Ignite inspiration, curiosity, and clear direction to take the next strides in your journey.
Learn the language of success and how to create meaning in a way that supercharges
you towards your vision.

“Mindset is the story you tell yourself about yourself”

What we’ll be doing:
● Learning about the words we use that keep us stuck and indecisive, and how you can change them to shift your mindset to clarity and confidence
● Getting clear on your vision and really believing it
● Establishing clarity and confidence in the purpose of your life and your work
● Getting clear on your direction and next steps using a powerful goal setting tool
● Learning how to utilise curiosity and discipline to create your success

What you’ll leave with:
● Your vision that you will be anchored to for days, weeks and months to come; your guiding light
● The most powerful goal setting tool in the market which you can rinse and repeat
● Exercises you can repeat each time you want to turn the dial up on your success
● Exercises you can use with your colleagues
● Confidence and excitement about your work

“Curiosity and discipline smokes inspiration and motivation”
Let’s get curious.

As a young social entrepreneur, it’s easy to fall into common traps of startup life: overworking, blurring the lines between work and life, or pushing through exhaustion because you’re passionate about your mission.

And the best way to prevent these and ensure long-term success as well as well-being is energy management, the art of understanding your most valuable resource in life.

By understanding how to harness your energy highs and lows, you can optimize productivity, embrace guilt-free rest, and maintain long-term resilience as social entrepreneurs.

This session will introduce you to the fundamentals of energy management, helping you prevent burnout, boost motivation, and make more impactful decisions both personally and professionally.

Exclusively for representatives of SIA Host organizations, this live session at the SIA Summit will feature the nomination and election of two Steering Board representatives.

As SIA’s highest-level decision-making body, the Steering Board plays a pivotal role in shaping the network’s strategic direction. The session will include a presentation on the Steering Board’s purpose, open discussion, and voting using a ranked-choice system.

Don’t miss this opportunity to actively contribute to SIA’s future!

This session provides SIA winners with a unique platform to pitch their ideas and receive valuable feedback from fellow winners and Summit participants.

It’s an excellent opportunity to share your vision, gain fresh perspectives, and refine your venture with input from a supportive and diverse audience. Use this space to connect, learn, and take your ideas to the next level!

Discover how to foster regenerative innovation through collaborative alliances and ecosystems.

Learn practical strategies for co-creating with diverse stakeholders through the Impact Garden framework. Our world faces crises; innovation ecosystems unite organizations and communities to move away from extractive actions and towards co-creating long-term life-centred solutions.

Social media has transformed the way we connect, communicate, and create change, offering vast opportunities for personal expression, activism, and global collaboration. However, at the same time it fuels societal polarization, spreads misinformation, and impacts mental health.

This session dives into the paradox of social media as both a force for empowerment and a source of societal challenges.

Together, we’ll explore its influence on individuals and communities, reflect on its positive and negative effects, and discuss strategies to harness its potential for meaningful impact while mitigating its risks.

Join us as we launch the SIA Youth Council, a milestone in our journey to empower youth globally. This initiative invites alumni to shape SIA’s strategic direction, ensuring our programs and offerings continue to meet the evolving needs of youth worldwide.

Learn how the council will contribute to the SIA Steering Board (SIA’s higest-level decision-making body), provide structured input on SIA’s program, and influence our collective impact. Discover how you can contribute to steering the future of SIA!

In this session, we’ll show you a practical way to turn your vision into clear, actionable strategies. You’ll walk away with tools and routines you can directly apply to your business, helping you turn ideas into measurable results.

Explore how to design organizations that thrive in uncertainty through resilience and regenerative practices. Learn to leverage innovation ecosystems to drive collaboration and co-create solutions. Equip yourself and your organization with the tools to adapt, scale, and lead in a rapidly changing world.

Innovation is not a straight line to success. The road is full of stones, dead ends and other unforeseeable events. Especially when the problem we want to solve is “blurry” and it is unclear what kind of solution might help, we are in the chaos quadrant of innovation. Problems in this quadrant are often called “wicked problems”, because our standard solving methods fail for those problems.

A well established, researched and executed method to tackle problems in this quadrant is Design Thinking.

In this session we will investigate the mindset and approach of Design Thinking and how it is used to solve wicked problems.

This workshop is designed to equip impact founders with the skills to create their first financial plan—from understanding key financial concepts to building it in Excel.

We’ll cover the purpose and structure of Profit & Loss and Cash Flow Statements, demonstrating how to use them for a 4-year financial projection. Take home a ready-to-use template that can support your fundraising efforts and inform your internal strategy.

This session provides SIA winners with a unique platform to pitch their ideas and receive valuable feedback from fellow winners and Summit participants. It’s an excellent opportunity to share your vision, gain fresh perspectives, and refine your venture with input from a supportive and diverse audience. Use this space to connect, learn, and take your ideas to the next level!

This workshop introduces the work of Independo and explores how Co-Design is used in they approach. Participants will learn about the potential of Co-Design and engage in brainstorming sessions to identify Co-Design opportunities for their own projects.

If you want to learn how to build a community that not only grows but also supports the development of your business, don’t miss this unique mastermind session. Andrea, the founder of the award-winning startup M.arter and creator of the largest community of proactive parents in the Czech Republic, will guide you through the key steps to building a thriving community.

You’ll gain practical tips, proven strategies, and inspiration from someone who has grown her organization from scratch to international recognition. This mastermind is perfect for founders looking to build their communities effectively and with real impact.

You have one life – how can you wake up every day making money doing something that you love, all while making the world a better place?

Join Martin Nicolaï, Communications Lead of Social Impact Award, Julian Gerhart, and Martina Bolibruchová, founders of startup Zmudri, for the world premier of Episode 10 of The Impact Blueprint, the world’s first guide for young people on how to find purpose in the 21st century.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&A with Julian and Martina diving into their personal stories and reflections about living a purposeful life.

In this interactive workshop, participants will discover how fashion can be designed inclusively and what challenges people with disabilities face in everyday life.

Sensory exercises and practical reflections enable a change of perspective that encourages reflection and shows concrete approaches for inclusive design.

A geodesic dome is the most robust, energy- and material efficient building method ever discovered by mankind.

The reason for this is the unique network between the different building parts, that are creating an equilibrium of all incoming forces by working together and distributing the stress equally.

In it’s singular pieces the struts and hubs are weak but well connected with each other you can build from very little very much in a short period of time.

That’s why we’ll build a geodesic structure together, getting to know each other and quite incidentally learn about the importance of a strong and robust network as a social entrepreneur.

In this interactive workshop, participants will discover how fashion can be designed inclusively and what challenges people with disabilities face in everyday life. Sensory exercises and practical reflections enable a change of perspective that encourages reflection and shows concrete approaches for inclusive design.

A geodesic dome is the most robust, energy- and material efficient building method ever discovered by mankind.

The reason for this is the unique network between the different building parts, that are creating an equilibrium of all incoming forces by working together and distributing the stress equally.

In it’s singular pieces the struts and hubs are weak but well connected with each other you can build from very little very much in a short period of time.

That’s why we’ll build a geodesic structure together, getting to know each other and quite incidentally learn about the importance of a strong and robust network as a social entrepreneur.