AUTHOR: MARIA CHRONOPOULOU | PHOTOGRAPHY: VASILIS KOUROUPIS
– To begin with, tell us who you are.
– My name is Dimitris Kokkinakis, I am 30 years old and I grew up and still live in Athens. Together with my best friend and companion in many things, I started Impact Hub in 2013.
– How did you come up with this idea?
– I met Sofi at University. Initially, we were members of another organization called AIESEC. When we travelled to Brazil for a conference with this organization, we worked with two of the founders of Impact Hub in Madrid. This experience piqued our interest, so Sofi and I decided that Sofi would go and spend three months with Impact Hub in Madrid while I would spend time with Impact Hub in Vienna. In the end, we each stayed for two and a half and three years with these local groups, respectively, and we saw how the whole Hub had been created in these two cities. In early 2013, we returned to Athens and started up a branch of Impact Hub here. We had always remained in touch with Athens and it was always our desire and our goal to return here.
– What is Impact Hub?
– Impact Hub is an international network and movement which came into being 10 years ago. It consists of independent enterprises in 100 different cities around the world which have come together to form a cooperative. When a new Impact Hub wishes to join the collective, it goes through a process. In order to launch the new Hub, two other Impact Hubs guide it through a procedure which varies in duration from one year to 18 months, with the aim of opening out the project in the new city. In our case, we conducted a case study for around a year to see if there was realistically space for our idea to be implemented here in Athens.
– Was it easy to set it up? In the beginning, were you supported by other Impact Hubs around the world? Did you ask for funding elsewhere?
– The whole Impact Hub project is a private initiative, so we had to put in some money to start with.
– How is Impact Hub run? What is the role of those taking part?
– Impact Hub is a community, which means that it has members. Our role is to bring together members conducting business in different sectors and to increase their interaction with specific procedures and group dynamics. The aim is to get to know each other better, to cooperate with one another and to enable members to find clients, suppliers, investors or employees through their interactions with other members.
– Does someone have to belong to a legal entity in order to be integrated into this framework, or can a natural person also be a member?
– We always refer to individuals. Even if someone comes to us from an organization or an entity, they are still a person. Therefore, we always refer to individuals, each of whom brings his/her own projects.
– How exactly do the groups that you host operate?
– Over the four years that we have been operational, we have worked with and supported over 200 groups and organizations. At this moment in time, there are about 50 groups in our community, of which some have their own legal status and have been running for 10 years, and are now interested in developing a more sustainable business model. For example, some old NGOs have perhaps been running for quite a while and are now interested to see how they can be more sustainable and independent. This is one category of organization. There are other groups which have just started up, while some have come out of one of our programmes, such as the Social Impact Award.
– What is the Social Impact Award?
– It is a social entrepreneurship contest for young people, which is simultaneously carried out in 19 European cities. Its goal is to enable young people to come up with their own working positions while they are still studying. It includes free access to education for two months for all participants in the form of seminars and workshops. At the same time, boot camps to help candidates prepare are held in different regions across Greece. Last but not least comes the competitive process, during which the participants submit their ideas. These ideas are judged by both a jury and audience voting. At the end, three winners are nominated, and we give them 3,000 euros as seed capital and another 3,000 euros in services for them to set up their business and work from the Impact Hub for six months.
– And what is the Scaling Programme?
– We run the Scaling Programme with seven other European Impact Hubs with the goal of helping social enterprises to expand their business activity in new cities, whether they be in Greece or abroad.
– Is it possible for there to be an Impact Hub in Athens and another Greek city, or should there only be one Impact Hub in each country?
– Not necessarily. In London, for instance, there are four Impact Hubs. It was actually in London that the first Impact Hub was started. In Italy, there are six Impact Hubs. The Impact Hub in Athens was the first in a series of experiments – to start up an Impact Hub in a city and a country in the throes of a highly turbulent socioeconomic situation. This was obviously a great challenge. Until then, all the new Impact Hubs that had so far been created were based in the world’s biggest metropolises or in up-and-coming markets, such as Sao Paolo, Singapore, Amsterdam and London.
– Can someone from abroad come and work here?
– Of course he/she can. If it is for a long period of time, he/she can also become a member and participate in other activities. Otherwise, someone can benefit from the plug-and-work scheme, which means that he/she can work from the Impact Hub for one day.
– Do you believe that social entrepreneurship is perhaps the answer to the crisis we are going through at the moment?
– The crisis has taken so many different forms over the years that it requires you to act differently in any case. The interesting thing with social entrepreneurship is that it is a more flexible model, which means that takes more factors into consideration than the merely financial.
– Were there any people who were against your ideas in the beginning?
– It is intriguing, you know, because people who are more negative usually wait and see how something pans out and then get on the bandwagon, rather than participating in the creative process. It is important not to get irritated by the fact that everything is not perfect at the start. Instead, you need to be in the mentality to solve problems and think of solutions instead of getting bogged down in the problems. This is a mentality that takes time to develop. But you can get there.
– I couldn’t agree more. Thank you very much.
– Thank you very much, too.
