#impacthubmashup
Written by: Andrea Stover, Event Manager and Community Host at Impact Hub Stockholm.
On 26th November more than 100 people signed up to attend our first Mashup event, where a number of Impact Hubs around the world were having almost similar events on the same day at the same time. It was fully packed as there was not a chair to spare. This may have been due to our partnership with Stockholm + Acumen or perhaps it was because of our exquisite marketing skills, but most likely it was due to the very timely theme of ”Integration and Entrepreneurship”. We invited four speakers with startups that support the integration of immigrants in Swedish society. The audience was anxious to hear from people not just worrying, but doing something.
First up, we heard from Sandra Kinnaman from The Good Talents, an organization that helps dis-empowered youth, often from immigrant backgrounds, embrace their leadership and entrepreneurial skills. They offer a year-long training program and a number of workshops, training and mentor-matching programs for students in classrooms across Sweden. The youth in their program gain immeasurable self-esteem, networks, and the skills necessary to pitch their ideas to a large audience and use their business acumen to jump start their own solutions.
Next up, Lina Makso, a Syrian refugee living in Sweden for the last 2 years, presented the Invitationsdepartmentet or United Invitations. United Invitations is a startup that began in January 2014 and today hosts hundreds of dinners between immigrants and native Swedes in 25 cities across the country. Today, United Invitations has spread across Europe to include dinner between locals and immigrants in 25 cities outside Sweden as well.
Ingrid Ramberg presented from Mångkulturellt Center, a municipal foundation that promotes a perspective of Sweden with diversity and migration as a natural part of Swedish national image. The foundation helps Swedish citizens understand, respect, and celebrate other cultural traditions in Swedish society in part with the annual Muticultural Calendar, that includes holidays from the around the world.
Finally, Carlos Salas presented Sveriges Internationella Talanger or Swedish International Talents, an organization that seeks to connect, promote, and support professional immigrants in their search for work in the Swedish labor market. SIT uses LinkedIn to help professional immigrants make connections necessary to get a job as well as help companies in Sweden find suitable people to fill jobs while also benefitting from the diversity they bring and knowledge of foreign markets.
Although this first Mashup was done in partnership with Stockholm + Acumen and therefore did not strictly follow the Mashup guidelines, it did provide participants an opportunity to connect with the global impact network. Near the entrance we had a screen dedicated to the live zoom channel providing a window into the happenings at different hubs around the world. We also participated in the quote competition, scrambling to catch all the beautiful words spoken by the speakers. A clear favorite from Lina Makro: “If we can build family around the dinner table, can we not also build our society around the dinner table too?”
Our next Mashup will take place at the end of January featuring more presentations from our fantastic Impact Hub Stockholm members. We hope to see you all there!