Deadline: May 31, 2024.

Are you dedicated to nurturing and growing the ecosystem for impact entrepreneurship? Impact Pioneers is a leadership programme that welcomes you to exchange experiences with an international network of peers and gain first hand insights and experience from Sweden’s most successful impact entrepreneurship leaders and environments. The long term programme objective is connected the SDG 8, target 8.3, which includes promotion of activities and policies that support entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation to encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium sized enterprises, ultimately contributing to job creation and sustainable economic, social and environmental development.

The application is open to entrepreneurship ecosystem leaders and practitioners who work in organizations and networks that want to develop their support for entrepreneurs with businesses related to sustainablility and green transition. More specifially, we imagine applicants to work as:

• Startup hub/accelerator/incubation founders and managers
• Tech and innovation hub founders and managers
• University accelerator/incubator managers
• Public sector employees involved in work that supports impact entrepreneurship

The application is open to 22 programme countries (applicants must be a citizen and resident of one of them):

AFRICA: Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa, Zambia
ASIA: Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam
EUROPE: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine*

*Ukrainian applicants who reside outside of Ukraine are also eligible to apply.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

Applicants must meet the following requirements:

• Be a citizen and resident of one of the 22 programme countries
• Work in an organisation or business systematically working to nurture and grow entrepreneurs.
• Have the mandate to develop new international partnerships for your organisation/business.
• Have a good working knowledge of both written and spoken English.
• Be willing to actively participate, provide support and share their experience and knowledge with other participants.
• Have identified opportunities and challenges that could be worked on during the programme to help their organisation improve its contribution to the local entrepreneurship ecosystem

An applicant’s home organisation/business must also meet the following requirements:

• Be locally owned and based in one of the programme countries.
• Be somehow hosting/coaching (or be in the process of starting up hosting/coaching of) entrepreneurs with business ideas that are related to sustainability and green transition.
• Run the organization/business with focus on contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals.

BENEFITS

The Swedish institute arranges and covers costs related to:

• Learning programme
• Flights to and from Sweden for the Sweden week onsite visit
• Accommodation, meals, transportation and insurance while in Sweden.

APPLICATION

1. Register your profile in the application portal (DreamApply)
2. Select ‘Impact Pioneers ’24:Enabling Impact entrepreneurship’ as the programme you would like to apply for (open for application 1 May – 31 May (23:59 CET).
3. Click on the “Apply Now!” button, and answer the questions for the different sections (found in the left-hand menu). Please review the application overview document beforehand to know what questions to expect.
4. As part of the process, be ready to upload a short pre-recorded video and your most recent resume/CV as per the instructions in the portal. Please review the application overview document beforehand to ensure this will be a smooth process for you.
5. After you’ve submitted your application, you’ll receive a confirmation to your inbox in the application portal (DreamApply).

More information on the OFFICIAL LINK