What is Impact Weekend?
Impact Weekend is a 60-hour, hands-on, innovative experience that brings together students from IE Business School with social entrepreneurs from across Spain to share ideas and develop socially responsible business plans. Its role is to leverage IE Business School’s business savvy and strong culture of entrepreneurship to empower both social entrepreneurs and students with the tools to create a more socially and environmentally sustainable world through business. The ultimate goal of each venture should be to reach impact.
Brought to you by a collaboration between IE Net Impact Club, iWeekend, Ashoka and IE Venture Lab, the first Impact Weekend experience will take place in Madrid, Spain from 27 to 29 May 2011.
The weekend will begin with an open pitching session on Friday evening, where a short list of 12 ideas will be pitched in front of an audience of judges and Impact Weekend participants, and 5 will be selected. 10 students will work on each of these 5 ideas on Saturday and Sunday, using innovative and practical methodologies to build scalable ventures that address real-world issues. Established experts in social entrepreneurship identified by Ashoka will provide valuable mentoring advice throughout the weekend. On Sunday evening, each team will pitch their plans to a handful of European investors working in both traditional and socially oriented venture capital firms. In addition to gaining exposure and media attention, the winning team will be provided with a direct entry into the next IE Venture Lab, whose classes begin in September 2011.
