Impact Week Colombia - promote social innovation in Colombia!

 Young people between the ages of 17 and 25 account for a sizable proportion of the Colombian population. However, there is often no perspective for them to pursue a regular, decent job. The labor market is characterized by a high informality rate of 58%, offers that often do not correspond to the increased level of education (ILO, 2019), and the general shortage of opportunities for young people to pursue. Consequently, youth unemployment is a worrying rate of 21.61% (Statista, 2022). Thus, young people are frequently affected by poverty and are at risk of joining the 21.06 percent of the population in Colombia who live on less than $3.20 per day. 

It is precisely in this context that start-ups represent a perspective out of poverty. Moreover, entrepreneurial solutions in the form of social enterprises can be self-sustaining and long-term solutions for important social, environmental or economic problems while also profiting the local population. However, access to methodologies that facilitate entry into entrepreneurship and produce user-centered solutions such as design thinking is frequently limited. 

That is why, in our Design Thinking workshops, we teach young people between 17 and 25 to turn social problems into entrepreneurial solutions, creating lasting positive change in their local communities. We also embed knowledge in the country by enabling individuals from local institutions such as our partner university, incubators, and non-profit organizations to become Design Thinking Coaches themselves.  

Our coaches are Design Thinking experts who volunteer to share their knowledge with those who need it most. We do this by hosting a 3-day train-the-coach session, where people from local institutions are trained alongside international participants. This is followed by a 4-day Innovation Challenge in which the newly trained coaches, supported by experienced coaches, guide young students through the innovation process on real problems of Colombia. At the end of the event, the teams present their ideas in front of a jury. 

The advantage of our methodology is that we empower people to harness their own creativity and thus promote ideas that are from the community for the community. In addition, we promote new perspectives and cross-national friendships through an intercultural exchange at eye level on both sides. 

Until now, we have been able to finance our projects self-sustainably through participation fees from companies that have purchased a certain number of seats per Impact Week. However, we have an ever-increasing need for projects in the Global South and a 'customer base' of our international paying participants that is not developing with us. Thus, due to a funding gap, the continuation of the project is in jeopardy.