As part of Seeds of Peace’s GATHER Fellowship, SE Forum is partnering with Seeds of Peace to run this week’s incubator that kicks off this year’s Fellowship. The incubator’s aim is to transform conflict and we’re discussing the question of how to move beyond superficial diversity to leverage our differences and build thriving, equitable communities across lines of conflict. Taking part in the incubator are selected social innovators from the Middle East, South Asia, the US and Europe who are already making a social, economic, or political impact. They work in various fields but are all united in their optimism and unwavering commitment to transform conflict, despite the tensions in their regions.

The week kicks off with intense training in business development and personal leadership. And it continues with meeting Swedish parliamentarians, having an exclusive session with Sweden’s former opposition leader Anna Kinberg Batra about personal leadership, and seeing first-hand how the Swedish organisation Fryshuset works with young people in Stockholm’s outer suburbs. The Fellows will also be paired up with top-class Swedish mentors such as Telia’s head of innovation, topic experts and business leaders. And we will end the week with an exclusive invite-only event where the Fellows will pitch their initiatives in front of a crowd of Ambassadors, business leaders, decision makers from all sectors and the former Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Jan Eliasson, as keynote speaker.

The partnership

We’re big fans of partnerships, and especially cross-sector ones, as we believe in achieving greater results together and learning during the process.

The GATHER Fellowship incubator has an ambitious set-up and it wouldn’t have been possible without the collaboration with Seeds of Peace. The organisation’s deep knowledge of conflict issues and its idea to get young people from conflict areas to meet and see the persons behind the conflict, and build personal leadership that will change the societies the future leaders live in, is essential to the GATHER Fellowship. SE Forum’s addition to the partnership is therefore the social entrepreneurship side of things, as we have rich experience of working with social entrepreneurs from all over the world. Seeds of Peace has been operating for 25 years and they sit on the expertise in conflict issues, and we complement them with expertise in how to build a thriving business whilst creating and recording social impact.

We’re looking forward to building on this partnership and seeing the developments of the Fellows as they work on the ground in their respective regions, creating change.