The Impactory » social innovation

JCI launching a Social Innovation Business Plan Competition

sandylopes — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:01:39 +0000

Social innovation business plan competition, JCI Monaco European conference 2013: deadline for submission of entries extended until Sunday 14th of April (contact: frederic.theate@gmail.com)!!

Each country in the World can submit 2 projects… 1 opening left for Luxembourg!! PLease use this as a great opportunity.

Important: Please make sure that all the required documents are sent by then, so that you have all your chances to win the 20.000€ prize (+ great exposure)!

For more information and for the competition rules, please see http://www.jci-ec2013.com/en/win-20000.html. For those applying, please note that if you are pre-selected, the jury meeting will be on the morning of Tuesday 28 May, please adapt your travel arrangements accordingly.

(Jury made up, among others, of the Fondation Cuomo and some leading lights in the field of social entrepreneurship including Dutch social entrepreneur Mr Barend Van der Vorm, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder of easyJet and Chairman of easyGroup and Monegasque serial entrepreneur Mr Gildo Pallanca-Pastor, the President of Venturi Automobiles)

Recent Events – March

sandylopes — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:45:11 +0000

In the last few weeks the space has been rocking literally with events like the Jam-pactory where serious musical talent emerged.
1-2 March we hosted the Luxembourg event for the Global Service Jam. It was a great session the generated some great local service ideas for Luxembourg. Some of these live on with the teams and the aim is to make them reality. A big thanks to Fi4Si for co-hosting this event! We love collaboration! Check out the photos on our Facebook page
We had a creativity workshop run by our member Miranda from Create and Connect
Yesterday we co-produced a conference together with 123Go Social, Caritas and the Idea Monopoly at the Centre Culturel Am Scheiss. The theme was Poverty in Luxembourg – Illusion or Reality? Using Visual Harvesting and the Business Model Canvas the participants created business ideas for local impact in Luxembourg on poverty. The conference participants were tired and at the same time energized by the hands-on work they did.

Admirable Entrepreneur – Elon Musk

The Impactory — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 21:58:50 +0000

Elon Musk, a thought leader and serial entrepreneur is a person you must know about! He has been introduced to us by Tor, one of our members who shared this with us on our 15th Jan celebration. See his presentation Most admireable entrepreneur 2013

In a nutshell, Elon Musk was born and raised in Pretoria, South Africa, the son of a Canadian mother and a South African father. His father is an engineer and his mother is an author, nutritionist and model. He bought his first computer at the age of 10 and taught himself how to program; by the age of 12 he sold his first commercial software for about $500, a space game called Blastar.

He left home in 1988 at the age of 17, without his parents’ support and in part because of the prospect of compulsory service in the South African military.

n 1992, after spending two years at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, he left Canada, pursuing business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia on a full scholarship. From the The Wharton School, he received an undergraduate degree in Business, and from University of Pennsylvania, School of Arts and Sciences, he received a second bachelor’s degree in Physics.

His undergraduate degrees behind him, he then considered three areas he wanted to get into that were “important problems that would most affect the future of humanity”, as he said later, “One was the Internet, one was clean energy, and one was space”.

He has described himself as a workaholic who routinely invests 100 hours per week running his two companies, often flying in a fuel-efficient corporate jet. One of his factories was used as a filming location for Iron Man 2 and he also had a cameo in the movie. Some of the most famous ventures he created arePayPal,Tesla Motors (premium electric vehicles), SolarCity (largest provider of solar energy in the US).

Elon is an optimist who accepts the risks involved in implementing his ideas, and any challenge gets crushed by his enthusiasm and determination.