As a social enterprise and innovation lab, we know modern cities to be the center of debate to build a more vibrant society. The metropolis offers amazing possibilities; yet pollution, lack of decent jobs, inappropriate resource use and a growing housing demand are also part of the urban reality. It is imperative to find sustainable solutions to these problems, for they will be key indicators for our future’s wellbeing.

Baltimore, Boulder, Budapest, Harare, Seattle, and Shanghai are among the vibrant cities around the world that today host the world’s leading network of entrepreneurial communities: Impact Hub. What they also have in common is the Communities for Change program.

Committed to making the most out of our metropolitan environment, Impact Hub teamed up with the Presencing Institute and created Communities for Change (C4C). The first series of the program engages six Impact Hubs in an eight-week prototyping journey, working along with the u.lab method. One of the participants is Budapest, Hungary’s capital.

The team embodies a multidisciplinary group of 15 participants from diverse backgrounds such as digital startups, corporates, entrepreneurs and NGO representatives. Together, they take on a journey to challenge the critical societal issues in today’s Budapest. The “Future of Work” is the title for the big agenda Impact Hub Budapest wishes to address. They are starting to tackle the challenge of identifying the underlying issues of why work is depleting people in Hungary and has started building up a strategy to reform this reality.

Jobs in Hungary pay very little, there is no financial security or freedom, and people in the commercial and public sector are vulnerable and not respected. Another growing issue is that their workplace is neither challenging nor fulfilling. Those who hold more financial freedom often work without much affection to their responsibilities. Hungarian companies do not offer creative tasks at the workplace, instead employees work mechanically for near to nothing. Typically, the creative jobs are done in the more developed countries’ offices of Europe. This situation has created a loop of mistrust towards the more developed countries regarding the current situation. As a result, young people and skilled professionals are leaving the country to find better opportunities.

The ‘Future of Work’ program aims to offer a new narrative, bringing new solutions to develop a conscious working environment, where employees have the full potential to develop themselves and exploit the full potential of their intellectual capabilities. The Impact Hub Budapest team has a big task ahead of themselves but they are ready for the challenge and looking forward to positively impact the Hungarian work culture.

If you would like to follow their process, Impact Hub Budapest is sharing weekly harvest HERE.