Wow, what a month! We’ve had delegations from Latvia and Belarus here to examine social innovation in Sweden, and we’ve also welcomed a group of young leaders from South Asia to discuss social entrepreneurship and how we see positive change happening in the world. Lastly, and certainly most intense, has been the final part of our 2017 SE Outreach Accelerator for social entrepreneurs, ending with an exclusive graduation event at KTH and Dome of Visions on 28 September.

Six months is a long time. However, I’m not sure our participants in the SE Outreach Accelerator had that feeling when graduating last week. After spending so much time together, sharing tough challenges and successful moments it was strange to see them leave Sweden for their home countries, but we will continue to follow their developments (make sure you do too on our social media channels!).

The graduation event was a great success including guests such as Ambassadors from several of the participants’ countries, CEOs, passionate advocates of social entrepreneurship, NGO leaders, and friends of SE Forum such as members, trainers and mentors. After a great pitching session and Q&A of the participants, the evening ended with an inspirational conversation with Jakob Trollbäck, the creator of the famous icons for UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, giving great insight to the thinking behind them and what they enable. The audience couldn’t have enough!

International visits

In the beginning of the month, the visit from Belarusian and Latvian delegations was an opportunity to learn from each other and discuss how municipalities and social entrepreneurs can work together. A great mix of people from ministerial levels to municipalities, social entrepreneurs as well as support organizations. Two packed days meeting with representatives from Vinnova, Inkludera Invest, Stockholm Stad and Botkyrka Kommun as well as information from SKL. For this project, we’ve also had the opportunity to meet two Swedish social enterprises, Ung Omsorg and Basta! – fascinating examples of how municipalities and social enterprises work together to achieve social impact. We’ll share our insights and thoughts during the winter so please stay tuned.

I love meeting people who are taking action on the challenges they’ve identified. This was certainly the case with a group of young leaders going through Swedish Institute‘s Young Connectors of the Future. We welcomed them to our office at Norrsken House and discussed global challenges and how to support each other for greater social impact.

Purpose-driven leaders

Lastly, I have to share a great day I participated in this week. It was organised by the great company Coest and focused on seeing impact as business critical. Imagine a beautiful setting at the wonderful Rosendals Trädgård, a room full of leaders from purpose-driven companies like Polarbröd, Houdini Sportswear, Oatly, Tesla and Paradiset. Add inspirational speakers such as Kate Raworth (Doughnut Economics), Martin Rich (Future-Fit) and Eva Karlsson (Houdini Sportswear) and there’s magic right there. It’s too early to properly digest my thoughts but the day sure gave me insights, inspiration and thoughts of where SE Forum fits into the eco-system.

So, to summarize, September was an action-packed month with added reflection and visions for the future.

Until next time,

Nick

Photo credit: Stina Svanberg www.stinasvanberg.se