Congratulations to Casa do Impacto (Impact House)!
On 1 October 2020 we celebrate the 2nd anniversary of this House. Another year of activity, making a difference, boosting Portuguese entrepreneurship. In this House the word Community is order and, even in an atypical year, we wanted to celebrate with the change makers who daily give their contribution for a better future!

Casa do Impacto is an Entrepreneurship and Innovation hub based in the Convento de São Pedro de Alcântara and founded in October 2018 by the Department of Entrepreneurship and Social Economy of Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, to accelerate the growth of an ecosystem of impact entrepreneurship, supporting start-ups with positive impact on society and social or environmental, based on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.

Over these 2 years of activity, Casa do Impacto has supported more than 200 entrepreneurs, distributed among the 28 incubated start-ups, more than 135 projects, currently has 48 projects participating in its programmes, has hosted 5 acceleration and training programmes, 7 ignition programmes, and an impact investment programme through which more than 100 projects have passed, has promoted more than 80 workshops and bootcamps and 170 events, reaching approximately 4,500 people. In total, the programmes and initiatives include more than 1.5 million euros in investment in innovation for impact.

And we will not stop!

The celebration event, entitled Cabaret for the Convent, which took place online at Zoom with live streaming on Casa do Impacto’s Facebook, brought together Inês Sequeira, Director of Casa do Impacto, and five representatives of the founding partners of this House – Luís Fonseca, Partner of Maze, Carlos Azevedo, CEO of IES – Social Business School, Domingos Guimarães, Co-founder of the <Academia de Código_>, Catarina Campino, <Head of Detail> at the Academia de Código, and Hugo Menino Aguiar, Founder of Speak – in a conversation about the path of the House and the ecosystem of impact entrepreneurship.

In the conversation, the role of the Casa do Impacto in creating a community of disruptive entrepreneurs and strengthening the ecosystem was emphasized. The invited entrepreneurs praised the current landscape that presents an increasing number of projects, more competitive and sustainable. All agreed that “Portugal is becoming a global example in the impact economy” and that social and environmental concerns are gradually taking root in the business world.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this talk! Could you not attend? Watch the video here.

In this space we are constantly launching new challenges for entrepreneurs, but on this special date, Inês Sequeira, Director of Casa do Impacto, also launches internal challenges for the future of Casa do Impacto, “to continue to train entrepreneurs through the Rise for Impact acceleration program, to leverage projects using the +Plus Fund, and to challenge entrepreneurial minds through RISE for Impact or the Santa Casa Challenge. We also want to reach more entrepreneurs, from different countries, genders, ethnicities, social classes, backgrounds and ages to bring more diversity and inclusion to entrepreneurship, in order to leverage comprehensive response solutions to society as a whole and also states that “continuing to promote Portugal as a hub for innovative entrepreneurs and being the centre of Portuguese and international impact entrepreneurship is a priority. To this end, we have driven and promoted the growth of the community of entrepreneurs among the external public, through the events and workshops that we hold every week, where we give stage to the best of what is done here. We now intend to expand the network of partners, even across borders, to support this community”.

In order to mark the anniversary, Casa do Impacto launched the campaign It all starts with an idea, finds out everything here and was presented the new website, revitalized and with new features.

Get ready, this is the Age of Impact Entrepreneurship.

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