Are you a new member at Impact Hub Stockholm and want to get to know the members of our community? Our most recent Impact Hub initiative is called The Hub Buddy Program, where one new member, one experienced member and a Community host meet for 30-45 minutes, introduce themselves to each other and share Impact Hub experiences.
The underlying aim of the Hub Buddy Program is to create meaningful conversations and help each other to get the most out of Impact Hub.
We interviewed Louise Lombach from Global Business Labs to get a feedback on the Hub Buddy Program.
Q: Louise, can you shortly introduce your company?
Louise: Global Business Labs is a network of business labs that seeks to accelerate entrepreneurship in emerging markets, such as Botswana, Namibia and Uganda. Our nonprofit organization works in close collaboration with prominent business schools and partners in the local business community. I have been working for Global Business Labs in Uganda and Namibia for 2 years, where I helped starting the offices. Now I work for the main office here in Stockholm and we joined Impact Hub Stockholm in March 2015.
Q. Who were the participants during your Hub Buddy session?
Louise: I met Matej Tremko, a Community host from Impact Hub Stockholm, and Christina Lidén who works for Ashoka Scandinavia – a global network of social entrepreneurs with nearly 3,000 Ashoka Fellows in 70 countries. The organisation works with leading social entrepreneurs, young people, institutions, companies, and individuals to multiply the number of change makers. While swapping our business stories with Christina, we realized that our companies share similar methods in terms of working with pro-bono partners.
Q. What did you talk about during the meeting?
Louise: It was a friendly and quite informal meeting, which helped us learn more about each other and get out of the “work mode”. We are both involved in various projects, which require a lot of our attention, and the Hub Buddy meeting was a way to make time to socialize more. It’s easy to get stuck with work and not really talk to people.
Q. From a business point of view, what do you think about the Hub Buddy program?
Louise: I think the program is a good way to socialize with other people and it helped me break down the barriers and get to know better Impact Hub’s community. In fact after the meeting, Cristina and I arranged a lunch together to talk more about possible cooperation in the future.
Q: Overall, what’s your opinion on this initiative?
Louise: In general, Impact Hub is really good at helping companies connect with each other. This initiative in particular is a facilitator if you want to meet people and companies close to your own interests. In the future, I will take part in another Hub Buddy session for a new company, Help to Help, a company working with entrepreneurs in Africa, and try to help them as much as Christina from Ashoka helped me.
Would you like to know more about the programs we have at Impact Hub Stockholm? Check out our program’s page here.
Author
Dana Patratanu is a Digital Marketing Analyst at Accenture Interactive with combined experience in marketing automation and project management.