Reaching out to our community: Impact Hub Athens
At this point of our journey as internal innovators, we have established who we are and what we want to change is, as well as taken action towards attracting public attention to both our issue and our team. The next step, according to miss Tsakarestou’s mentorship, was to reach out to our community. While keeping her suggestions in mind, we have decided to contact Impact Hub Athens and request an interview.
Within a short amount of time, we have received a positive answer from the organization, specifically from Errikos Ovadias. We were overjoyed by the quick reply and soon set up the date for the interview a few days later, on the 11th of January.
Our interviewee expressed his preference for the Zoom platform as it was easy to use. We were more familiar with Skype and were a little nervous about any technical issues that might occur due to our inexperience with the platform. For this particular reason, we made a test call on Zoom to ensure the smooth process of the interview and the recording of it. Half an hour before our scheduled video call, Errikos sent an email of the Zoom meeting to all the members of Project W.
After joining and introducing ourselves, we asked Errikos his permission to record the interview, to which he said yes.
In the beginning, we asked a few questions regarding Impact hub Athens. Errikos told us that the actions of the organization concern three areas: content, community, and space. More specifically, they create content, bring communities together and host in spaces. Their way of work is choosing areas and pillars they want to deepen in and work on them to have a direct or even indirect impact through helping others. Errikos specified that their brand is equivalent to social innovation and the impact it has globally.
The next questions were about who and how someone can stir social innovation, especially by creative action. Errikos answered that ” we don’t have a list with checkpoints, we don’t criticize someone with these aspects”. According to him, everyone can potentially help in social innovation and social change by one’s critical view and perspective.
For creative action, it’s helpful to know the objectives, for instance, working step-by-step to find the logistics. Another important aspect, according to Errikos is the communication plan (ex. The timeline, when and where the event will take place, who is our target group, how will we communicate with them). As for the practical matters of the event preparation, Errikos highlighted three: personal invitations and massive ones via the newsletter (communicational actions), funding piece, renting the space or paying the moderator/ facilitator, and the volunteering part.
As a follow-up to the previous questions, we asked Errikos about some workshops and programs that Impact Hub Athens is running. He answered that they do entrepreneurship workshops; about women refugees and immigrants. They offer them the appropriate tools and want them to get inspired by other women who are familiar with the subject. He said that business empowerment is also part of Impact Hub’s Athens DNA and added that “In Greece, we are some steps behind compared with other countries, however, we are trying our best to be on the same page with them.”
The drawn conclusions from the whole interview were that Impact Hub needs collective & continuous effort to bring about systemic change. Everyone can help in social innovation and change by their point of view and way of thinking, and Impact Hub is all about different allies who work in various projects but stay on the same page. They are all interacting with each other.
By the end of the interview, our expectations for the whole experience completely crumbled, positively. Instead of a strict and formal environment and short answers due to our interviewee’s speculated limited time, we experienced a friendly and casual atmosphere. Errikos gave us analytical & illustrative insights and was willing to help and guide us.
To watch the full interview in greek, click on the following link to our website: http://prjectw.tilda.ws/impact-hub-athens-interview
Don’t forget to check out the rest of project W :
Professor and Mentor: Betty Tsakarestou
