Impact Hub Athens: Creating connections between people and meaningful content locally & internationally
During Academic year 2017–2018, while studying towards an MA in Cultural Management at Panteion University and under the lead of Professor Betty Tsakarestou, our tutor in Cultural Marketing & Communication and project initiator of the Athens Co-Creation City Branding Project, we were challenged to discuss issues regarding paths towards a sustainable and resilient city.Our research involved looking at Athens Impact Hub as well as the Capital’s first synergy of social entrepreneurship between civic society, private stakeholders and the Municipality of Athens: Kypseli Municipal Market.
Visiting the Athens Impact Hub in the heart of Athens, a breath away from Monastiraki square, you get a feeling of exactly what promised by the initial quotation of its web page: It is a place where “a network of collaborators focused on making a positive impact on the world, those people that you‘ve been wanting to work with” can potentially be found. In our meeting with Dimitris Kokinakis, co-founder of the Athenian Hub, we were introduced to various issues regarding its vision, international and local scope, organizational mechanics and challenges that constantly reform the organization.
80 plus cities co-create
The Impact Hub Athens is part of an International global Network for creative collaborative alliances which was founded in 2005 in London and is constantly expanding to include a global community of more than 12,000 members in more than 80 cities in the world. Its vision is to bring together a global network of social innovators able to create positive social impact via their joined abilities and vision.
An International Network of Change Makers: The journey from the “Hub-World” to the “Impact Hub Association”
As Dimitris suggested, we had a look at a key article that outlines the long process of turning the International Hub to its current form, namely “how the hub found its centre” which consists of a detailed and honest account of the succession of organizational models that the Hub had to go through since 2005 up to date. This article amongst other important issues, offers an in — depth account of dilemmas such as “profit –non-profit?”, ownership and the economics of being a Movement, a Sustainable enterprise and a Network.
The article embarks back in 2005 London when the fist Hub was founded to form “Hub-World”, a limited company owned by J.Robinson to move on to the 2010 Amsterdam meeting where the accumulated problems had to be faced and reaches the 2011 Madrit meeting: That is the latest point where the establishment of an alternative, distributed model of co-ownership and entrepreneurial freedom in the form of a limited company where every Hub would be accountable for the whole. That being the current model celebrated by the International Hub community with a latest, major additional reform that sister Hubs would train potentially new Hub members.
Impact Hub Athens
Based on the principles of “Design Thinking” and “Hosting” Dimitris pointed out that Impact Hub Athens is
a place where people co-create physical/social and cyber spaces .
He also emphasized that after moving back from their training abroad, him and his co-founder Sofi Labrou felt like they had to put together their Manifesto which would act as a reminder of their common vision of positive impact and social change at the emergence of any upcoming challenges.
Community, Space and Content where the three key elements upon which Impact Hub Athens was built. 30 people of the close social circle of the two co-founders tested the common needs and the revenue streams users were willing to pay in return of services in order to create sustainable patterns and keep the community engaged.
Municipal Market of Kypseli: A hybrid partnership of State — Private Collaboration
The 1935 built Municipal Market was saved from demolition by local residents’ persistence and regenerated by EU funds and the successful cooperation of the public key stakeholders. It eventually managed to be transformed into a cutting-edge host for various collaborative initiatives ranging from non-profit organizations to social enterprises offering the opportunity for innovative ideas to be expressed.
“Now Kypseli has to raise to the challenge to create the organizational and financial mechanics that would allow the Municipal Market to use the economical, educational and cultural pilons to become self-sustained” D.Kokinakis says.
