How Impact Hub Belgrade supports its members

As a team, we are dedicated to supporting and developing the Serbian innovation ecosystem. We support change-makers who come from different backgrounds and are carrying-out various missions all while hosting a diverse network of experts who take on the role of mentors, educators, and investors. This is part of broader efforts to contribute to the creation of a paying-it-forward culture. Once a year, we create an event called ‘Recap’ to bring our Impact Hub family closer together. We do this by organizing panels on emerging topics in the entrepreneurial ecosystem with academic, business and startup leaders. We create a space for experts to share their latest expertise in masterclasses and build a stage for entrepreneurs to showcase their vision. 

5 years of impact

December 2019 marked our fifth anniversary, and it made us reflect on the achievements of the past years. The space and the opportunities we offer are what we are most proud of and the collaborative atmosphere is the first thing that strikes a visitor who steps foot into Impact Hub Belgrade. The opportunities we have been providing are an entrance point to becoming part of a community that enables you to create new economic models. We do this by supporting you to reshape your business model and match you with a team member and lead who shares your mission. You become a part of global change – we are dedicated to pursuing gender diverse entrepreneurial models that reflect the diverse world we live and work in.  We support and foster the creation of solutions, teams, and environments that are striving towards sustainable change. We are dedicated to showcasing new practices and learning from them through our accelerator program, podcast, meetups, blogs, tailor-made member sessions, Friday’s jazz hours, and more. 

Our birthday was 3 days of events filled with unique experiences.

These activities centered around facilitating a connection between people and communities whose paths don’t usually cross. We organized a number of events. A Demo Day with a star-studded jury and an investor pitch with international business Angel Investors with our Impact Hub Milan partners. On top of this, we launched WE (women entrepreneurs) angels who are the first Serbian female investor group established in order to support gender diverse entrepreneurial teams and companies, a business angel investing meetup and a crazy dance party! 

Impact makers and innovative humans always come first.

In a VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) environment, there is always talk about business resilience. Instead of pushing people into unnatural dynamics of accelerating them and their ideas beyond their capacities, we get to know them first. Business resilience is very dependent on leadership. For that reason everything we do as a team, such as in our programs, mentorship, and involvement across the network, we are fiercely dedicated to learning-based leadership. For this, we don’t measure endurance but the capacity to open their entrepreneurial endeavors to the outside world. 

How this approach has helped us achieve success.

In all our endeavors we have stayed true to ourselves and our successes make us proud. One of them are the WE Angels, leaders and mentors who represent the very backbone of our business and support us in goals such as achieving a zero-waste mindset of circular economy. We have made an Impact Hub Mentor Fund and gave out the first prize at our Demo day in December 2019. In August we created a podcast dedicated to the regional startup ecosystem where experts have been sharing their best practices and providing valuable insights. In just 2 months, the podcast landed in the top 40 interview genre podcasts on Mixcloud globally!

The next 5 years. 

2020 is bringing with it the challenge of addressing the lack of diversity in the entrepreneurial world – both in the local ecosystem and in the markets which Impact Hub Belgrade hopes to lead its entrepreneurial teams into. This year’s focus is on a transmedia approach in order to develop entrepreneurial teams and will include the ReCap event, 4 demo days, 4 accelerating programs all while encouraging gender diversity. 

We are proud of what we have achieved in the last 5 years and are optimistic about the future. We are on a continuous pursuit to create and shape the innovation of tomorrow. To learn more about our Impact Hub community follow the links to the podcast episode part one and part two that we have created. 

This blog post is co-written by Andreja Koršič, Transmedia Strategist and Community Catalyst, at Impact Hub Belgrade.