SE Forum celebrates 20 years of advocating entrepreneurship to create impact

20 years ago, a passionate group of professionals working within fields such as entrepreneurship, innovation and sustainability, felt the need of creating a community around social entrepreneurship in Sweden. Social entrepreneurship was growing as a concept internationally but the development is Sweden was slower with a stronger divide between the different sectors so they felt we needed a platform to grow the field in Sweden too. And this passionate group of people managed to build something that turned into a community, a support organisation for social entrepreneurs and a strategic player working to strengthen the ecosystem for entrepreneurship and innovation that contributed to the greater good.

Over the years, we’ve been able to explore innovation and entrepreneurship in Sweden as well as globally, and we’ve been able to work with ambitious and inspiring people on exciting projects to strengthen the field of social entrepreneurship. And we’ve been able to watch and support the impressive efforts of social entrepreneurs from all over the world, working to improve the lives of people, to save our planet, and build resilient communities across the globe.

Today, we’re seeing worrying developments in terms of climate change, inequality, social exclusion, democracy and polarisation. Working together to solve our societal challenges is perhaps even more important now than it was back in 2004 when SE Forum was founded, because we’re running out of time to change things around in a more positive way. We will take strength and passion from these last 20 years to continue working to advocate entrepreneurship and innovation that create positive change, and we encourage everyone to join because collaboration is the only way forward.

We’ve gathered reflections on the development of social entrepreneurship and some of our best highlights and memories from the past 20 years in a publication that you can find here.

And we’d also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has supported and contributed to our work since the start. Thank you to all colleagues, board members, trainers, coaches, mentors, entrepreneurs, members, partners, funders and friends.