Impact Shakers City Guide: Budapest
Since travel isn’t what it used to be, we decided to travel the world through our Impact Shakers City Guides, in which a member of our community shares some of the highlights of their city’s impact ecosystem.
In better times for travelling, the Hungarian capital, Budapest is high on the bucket list for travellers in Europe with a good reason. Historic architecture, beautiful views on the Danube, elegant bridges, hip bars, a vibrant nightlife and cultural scene makes Budapest a fantastic destination. So yes, there is a lot to do in this Central European capital, which is quickly catching up to put itself on the map of European innovation, entrepreneurship and social impact.
About me in a nutshell: I’m the co-founder and COO of Impact Shakers, a global impact ecosystem tackling societal challenges through inclusive entrepreneurship.
With Impact Shakers we tackle complex societal and environmental challenges through inclusive entrepreneurship. To tackle more complex problems through entrepreneurship we need more diverse entrepreneurs and we need to activate all of this underused problem-solving potential. We work to bridge the gap between impact and profit and to build and scale stronger ventures. We are part of a global movement working on making impact a logical part of every business model. Making the impact economy, just the economy.
My background is international relations and startup ecosystem building. I helped to build the Belgian and European startup ecosystems through Startups.be, the Belgian startup association and the European Startup Network, a policy think tank uniting 24 startup associations across Europe. Later I co-founded a startup association in the town of Győr, StartITup and I’m also an ambassador for a network stimulating female entrepreneurship across Europe, the GUILD. I’m driven to use my knowledge to build scalable, impact-driven businesses with global ambitions. That’s why I’m building Impact Shakers and keeping a close eye on the impact ecosystem in my home country.
Let’s have a glimpse of what the Budapest impact scene has to offer!
As the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Hungary matures, you can find more and more supporting initiatives in Budapest:
Impact Hub Budapest: A community and office space supporting the social impact community in Budapest through infrastructure with a large co-working space and offices, and by hosting inspiring events for the (broader) impact community.
Bridge Budapest: Bridge Budapest is a movement of value-driven entrepreneurs in Hungary. By catalysing a value-based business culture, Bridge Budapest thrives to create a more competitive and lovable business atmosphere in the country while they also contribute to developing and building more value-driven businesses in Hungary through initiatives like the Conscious Business Culture, the Edison Platform or the Bridge Bizniscool.
Social Impact Investors’ Association: The Association was founded to promote the social impact investment approach in Hungary. They do this through a community of investors committed to contribute to positive societal change, by stimulating the impact ecosystem and increasing the number of social impact investments and by developing the sector through knowledge-sharing and professional networking events.
TAVOSZ — National Alliance of Social Entrepreneurs: TAVOSZ is a community of Hungarian social enterprises, officially recognised as an interest representation.
Startup Europe Networks (SEN): The Startup Europe CEE and Western Balkans Network (SEN) was established under the patronage of Startup Europe to connect the key startup players and promoting entrepreneurial culture in Central and Eastern European and Western Balkan regions. We, as Impact Shakers are a partner of the network and collaborate with SEN on different projects such as Untold Stories (see below).
Events and awards make the ecosystem colourful, some of them are listed below focusing on founders and businesses:
Untold Stories: SEN organizes the Untold Stories Budapest conference which is an annual event with a mission to create a learning and networking opportunity for startups. With a special focus on the CEE region, it connects founders from all over the world with tech professionals and investors along with sustainability and impact-focused sessions in collaboration with Impact Shakers.
Central European Startup Award: As part of the Global Startup Awards family, CESA is the region’s biggest no-pitch no-conference startup festival and an award recognizing the best innovators, investors, community organisers, co-working spaces, social impact entrepreneurs (including a Best Social Impact Startup Award) and ecosystem supporters in 13 countries (Hungary, Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania).
Women’s Entrepreneurship Day: WED is organised in 144 countries around the world focusing on the importance of women’s entrepreneurship. The goal of the Hungarian event is to put women entrepreneurs in the spotlight, to create a female-friendly entrepreneurial ecosystem and to connect and empower women entrepreneurs in all walks of life.
RESTART by Pozi.io: an international startup and idea competition that brings ideas, projects, and solutions to make our future more liveable and sustainable together on one platform.
The available alternative financing options for impact businesses are growing steadily as well. Read below about some of the players offering capital for impact-driven companies:
Impact Ventures: Hungary’s first impact investing fund with the goal of achieving measurable positive social impact alongside a financial return. They invest in and provide business development support for social enterprises with sustainable, scalable business models to multiply their positive social and environmental impact.
Tőkeportál: It’s a marketplace platform for equity-based and donation-based crowdfunding currently active in Hungary and aiming to serve the entire CEE region in the long run. Tőkeportál provides a readily available form of financing with simple but regulated processes for early-stage small and medium-sized companies, as well as an opportunity for the crowd to invest small amounts of capital in local and regional enterprises without taking too much risk.
MagNet Bank — a community bank: The only Community bank in Hungary that practises ethical banking. It is owned by Hungarian citizens. According to the Bank’s founding principles, they perform banking operations in the most transparent manner possible while making business decisions and taking responsibility based on the principles of sustainability.
Budapest is also the home to many companies working on creating positive impact. Just to name a few to get you started:
Green Fox Academy: Green Fox Academy is a coding bootcamp which provides training to become an IT professional and after successful graduation, also helps to find a job with placement guarantee.
SignAll: SignAll has developed a technology leveraging AI and computer vision that is able to recognize and translate sign language. It can be used in both business and education
BOOKR Kids: BOOKR Kids is a unique reading-based edutainment tool, designed to engage and delight the youngest learners in reading. A carefully selected library of animated e-books which provides a bridge between tangible and digital book experience. They’ve recently raised 2M EUR in funding to expand their offering internationally and conquer the US market.
VermiGo: They develop a unique combination of a vermicomposting system and a vertical garden designed for urban ecologically minded changemakers.
Poliloop: By mimicking nature, Polipoop developed bacteria which are ‘eating’ unrecyclable plastics. The once polluting plastic waste serves as a carbon-rich food source for the bacteria. As a result, the end-product is usable again in the global circular ecosystem. The process is similar to the way organic waste is disposed in composting piles but the raw materials, in this case, are fossil-based. You can read about the idea in the article below.
NestingPlay: a social enterprise from Hungary with the mission to help each child benefit from the potential of playing. The benefits of play to children’s social, emotional, creative and cognitive development are essential for all learners, particularly to the most vulnerable. NestingPlay provides quality pre-primary education services to all children through guided sensory-based play activities to help children develop their skills and competencies.
Alko-Soft: The majority of visually impaired people in Hungary do not have access to newspapers and other printed matter, nor to universal services that are taken for granted by many. Alko-soft offers IT support for people with visual impairment, promotes ICT accessibility and sells equipment for the visually impaired. Alko-soft recently launched a specialized digital newsstand for visually impaired people, offering access to several highly reputable nationwide newspapers and magazines.
The list is far from exhaustive, which is a good thing: it shows how fast the ecosystem is evolving and how impact is taking a central stage.
Want to connect and grow together with other value driven entrepreneurs? Apply here to join our global online impact entrepreneurship community.
