We designed a co-working space which has hosted more than 700 members throughout the 5 (but really 6!) past years and we are proud to note that around 200 entrepreneurial initiatives with social orientation have been supported and matured in our hub!

Impact Hub Athens has been functioning as an incubator and as an accelerator for the development of 200 promising social & impact focus enterprises. Meanwhile through our actions and projects more than 600.000 € have been channeled into social businesses and created more than 180 job opportunities. 

We are really excited and by the same time challenged to be a part of  a community of innovators, dreamers and entrepreneurs, which keeps growing and keeps creating tangible solutions to our society’s most pressing issues. 

If you take a look at our front entrance you will see some of our members logos, if you step in again you will get to meet them! And we can assure you, you’ll be impressed! 

#community #socialimpact #impactentrepreneurship

Our spaces reflect our culture and values. Space is the body language of our organization. There are no rules. The design is elastic, dynamic, flexible, simple and we never call it finished. We always seek to find new definitions and potential purposes that suit the evolving needs of the impact entrepreneurs & innovators. We welcome suggestions and follow a co-design process that explores a set of unpredictable and surprising ideas.

The Impact Hub has a space to create; a place where one is free to mingle, make, think, and build.

It can be adapted to any occasion and transformed from a co-working space to a conference room, from a workshop setting or a meeting room to a stage, from a garden to an office and even to a dining and chill out area!

We have hosted more than 300 Impact Hub Athens Events & workshops and more than 1000 events of various formats and intentions by diverse organizations.

As our community continued to grow faster than we could have imagined there was an urge to expand, and so we did..

Our so-called “Hubanita” used to be a two storey semi-outdoor listed building, something like a theatre set!

It was inviting us to diverse space scenarios and thankfully “demand” directed us towards expanding our co-working space, so that we could grow our community and offer more quality and comfort for entrepreneurs & their teams to deliver extraordinary impact!

Hubanita was made up out of remains we found in space. We re-used and re-imagined old wood, furniture and any other material we came across during the process. 

Hubanita is a cherished working space: where one can work, join a meeting, or just mingle!

#coworkingspace #community #morespacemoreimpact

We want to be a part of a community where knowledge could be easily conveyed and injected into business practice from the phase of intention formation to the point where impact can be measured and scaled locally and globally! More than 200 businesses have gone through our programs while the total access to grand money and investment in the past 5 years is more than 1M euros..

Our very first accelerator programme was Social Impact Awards, a concept founded in 2009 which runs education and incubation programs to support early-stage social entrepreneurs in developing innovative business solutions to tackle the most urgent societal current matters. 

Social Impact Awards in Greece
[2014-2017]
“12 new social businesses were created | more than 1230 students gained access to impactful tools and knowledge  –15.000 became acquainted with ways to approach social change- 36.000 € cash was distributed as seed capital to these young initiatives”
#ideadevelopment #socialentrereneurship

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Investment Ready
Partnership with Allianz, Impact Hub Munich & Impact Hub Jakarta
#runningoperations #startups

Impact Hub Academy
[2015-2018]
in collaboration with Stavros Niarchos Foundation
#startupinitiative #impactentrepreneurship 

Impact Hub Scaling 
8 impact hubs from all over Europe [Athens, London, Madrid, Bucharest, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Milan and Vienna] came together with a common intention: to encourage existing social businesses to scale or to enter new markets! #socialimpact #impactentrepreneurship

Acting as a springboard for exploring ideas, sharing knowledge, and gaining access to essential resources and capital, we are creating a powerful process to support a new type of businesses. 

Till now our community counts its impact in many areas, as Social Inclusion, Democracy, Human Rights, Environment, Health, Employment, Education, Technology, Circular Economy, Arts, Accessibility, Integration!

We are a community of creators building a radically collaborative world. Since day 1, we have partnered with diverse actors, from grassroot organisations to top leading institutions, to leverage the value and the qualities that each one can bring, to deliver new value and amplify the power of social economy!

[European Commission – USA Embassy in Athens- Swedish Embassy in Athens—Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands – Stavros Niarchos Foundation – Ministry of Labour – Municipality of Athens – Athens University of Economics & Business – Panteion University – Onassis Cultural Center – TONIIC Network – Business Model Inc – The People’s Trust – Tetra Pack – Atlas Copco – Coca Cola, Microsoft, Techsoup- Robert & Bosch, MitOst-Allianz- National Technical School of Athens, ComicDom Press, Melissa Migrant Women Network, ActionAid, WWF, Fair Trade Hellas, MSF Athens, MSF offices from all around the world, WWF Hellas, Greenpeace, PeaceHack, Techfugees, Solomon, VouliWatch, Georgian community in Athens, Ukrainian community in Athens, Congolese community in Athens, Ethiopian community in Athens, We need books, BOROUME, Organization Earth, GFOSS, SciFy, Arsis, ΟΚΑΝΑ, Nigerian community in Athens, Philippino community in Athens, Snehta, EOAN (recycling company of Greece), Greenpeace, We need books, ACCMR, Athens School of Fine Arts, SOFFA, IOM, Between the Seas, ETSY community of Greece, Θετική Φωνή]

Smart Living Challenge & Plastic Fantastic Challenge promoting a sustainable lifestyle within the urban nest!
#innovation #impactprojects #sustainableliving

Challenged by the first concepts, we staged hackathons and editathons on social and environmental aspects: 

Hack the camp “Creating sustainable solutions around integration & refugees challenges in Greece, involving refugees, people from the front line of aid, entrepreneurs, developers and experts”

Diplohack “designing & developing solutions for monitoring & collaborating using open data in the EU.”

We boosted innovation through Social Challenges Innovation Platform-  Impact Hub Athens with the 6th District of the Municipality of Athens submitted 2 Challenges and 4 social enterprises were granted with €120,000 to prototype creative, innovative and sustainable solutions at the Municipal Market of Kypseli.

And we brought color into our basement! 
with Athens Comics Library, a project co-inspired with Comicdom Athen and  has been hosted in our hub since 2015.
Browsing the library you can find more than 2.500 titles of greek comics, american graphic novels, European BD’s and manga and loads more.

We are in step with culture, through:

Cult up “empowering young entrepreneurs who work in the cultural heritage field” #ideaformation

We went a step further and conceptualized the 

The Changers “by bringing together students and academic discourse and actual social entrepreneurs for knowledge and experience exchange” #ideaformation

We went mobile at 1st & 2nd EXPO Κ.AL.Ο. [2017-2018]by facilitating an actual Pop-Up Hub in the context of the Exhibition for Social and Solidarity Economy, we produced a space to foster fruitful dialogues and expertise exchange among social entrepreneurs and representatives of key organizations and authorities!

Currently, we make some noise with Community Arts Lab: Solving the world’s biggest problems takes ensembles, not soloists. Thus, as an evolution of El Sistema Greece, a community arts programme that uses music as a tool for social integration & empowerment of vulnerable youth & children, we have developed a series of arts & music activities, using the methodology of El Sistema, where children, youngsters, adults & families learn to work together, develop critical competencies and enjoy while learning  #communityartslab #socialimpact

And we stay close to nature 

With Mpostani, a local goods market where consumers can meet producers and can participate in educational workshops around food, sustainability, community and fair trade. *Ιn partnership with European Village #sustainablemarket #mindfulconsuming #sustainableliving

HYDROUSA  “revolutionizing the water supply chain in Mediterranean regions, demonstrating innovative solutions for water/wastewater treatment and management”. A EU Horizon 2020 Innovation Action project approved under the call topic “Water in the context of the circular economy”, aiming to close the water loops and also boost the agricultural and energy profile of the regions involved. #WaterManagement #circulareconomy

GAME CHANGER – Impact Hub Athens partners with TechSoup & organisations in other EU countries for a programme focusing on tackling hate speech & radicalisation amongst teenagers and create awareness on urgent social matters. 

CLIMATE JUSTICE- An alliance against climate injustice initiatives in Epirus.

Thankfully, we also got rewarded!

Reward/Distinction : IVLP Alumni Social Innovation & Change Award 2018; a recognition of the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program alumni for the high achievements driving social change through innovation in their home communities.

Designing the 1st Market of Social Entrepreneurship

Built in 1930’s Kypseli’ s market was a place where residents could buy household products & food, have a coffee and exchange the daily news.  It operated as a market until the early 1990’s. The market went under due to the decline of the area as well as the proliferation of supermarket chains in the neighborhood. In following ten years the building was occupied by neighborhood groups. In 2011 the building was revamped with European Funding. 

In March 2017, the Municipality of Athens assigned the management the Kypseli Municipal Market to Impact Hub Athens. 
We proposed a concept adhering to our values towards impact entrepreneurship, social innovation & social integration.

For us, Kipseli Municipal Market is a prototype to create the conditions for social cohesion, collaborative spirit and co-creation in one of the most populous, multicultural and historical areas of Athens. 

With the main themes of culture, education, social innovation and entrepreneurship we aim to strengthen the local economy, offer a meeting point for the creative citizen forces of the neighborhood and create a reference of innovation & experiencing impact economy for the Athenian public.  #kypselisocialmarket #socialimpact #rantevoustifokionos