FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
About the Organizar
1. What is Impact Hub?
Impact Hub Manila was co-founded by Ces Rondario in 2015 and sets itself up as an incubation hub focused on purpose-driven entrepreneurs whose venture ideas have the potential to impact the lives of Filipinos at large scale. It is part of the largest incubation network in the world, Impact Hub, headquartered in Vienna, Austria.
Globally connected and locally rooted, the Impact Hub network is the largest network of impact driven entrepreneurs in the world. This resonated with co-founder’s vision of catalysing Filipino impact entrepreneurs to start and scale their ventures globally.
Four and a half years since it opened its doors, Impact Hub Manila has reached over 5,000 individuals through its events, trainings, incubation programs and funneled over 750,000 USD of cash grants and entrepreneurial support.
2. Who are our Global partners?
Impact Hub Global is backed by respected corporations and organizations such as Bank of America, WWF, Argidius Foundation, Adidas, Cartier etc.
Locally, Impact Hub Manila’s Impact 2050 program is supported by DOST, DTI, DICT, DENR, DOE, League of Cities of the Philippines, The Araneta Group, ADB, GIZ, PLDT, Smart Communications Inc., Microsoft, Dentsu Aegis Network, Forest Philippines Foundation, NutriAsia, PLDT, Unilab and KMC Solutions.
All projects and programs developed by Impact Hub Global and Manila always go back to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, as we are the only incubator officially recognized by the UN Office in Geneva to tackle SDG via entrep and innovative solution.
3. Who is Ces Rondario?
Ces Rondario is a serial entrepreneur, social development expert, and mentor. She is the co-founder and CEO of Impact Hub.
Impact Hub Manila’s Founder & CEO, Ces Rondario has been immersed in the social development community since she was 16. Having volunteered for a number of NGOs and local government units, she got exposed to providing livelihood training programs to marginalized communities where she realized that it was access to opportunities that made the difference between those who could advance themselves in life from those who could not. This fueled her vision of becoming an enabler in giving people a platform to execute their ideas. This vision eventually took form when in 2015, Ces spearheaded the establishment of Impact Hub in the Philippines.
She has represented the Philippines and was part of a panel for a pitching event in Women20 Summit Berlin, a two-day workshop last March 28 and 29, 2017 where they collaborated and identified challenges women are facing in digital technology today.
She has also presented in TEDx talk independently organized by Miriam College, titled “How Does Impact Happen”. Here, she talks about challenging what wanting to “change the world” and “make an impact” really means.
ABOUT 2050fest
4. Why are we doing this?
The goal of Impact Hub is to create measurable positive impact through entrepreneurial action delivered by our communities. As Impact Hub is one of the largest networks of impact entrepreneurs in the world (17,000+ hubbers in 100+ hubs across 50+ countries around the world), it is in our DNA to be developing this thinking and action to the for our communities in the Philippines and in the region.
5. What is Impact2050?
Impact 2050™ is an integrated and innovative multi-year entrepreneurial programme that aims to catalyze the impact entrepreneurship ecosystem in the Asia Pacific.
More information at www.impact2050.com.
Why 2050?
We at Impact Hub Manila believe that for impact to be truly relevant, it must be founded on a well-informed understanding of the current global and local issues with a mindset for sustainability and scaling up. As the United Nations (UN) and world governments prepare for #Envision2030, the agenda set by the UN for countries to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) in the next 10 years, we are empowering our communities of global citizens, the youth, and our entrepreneurial actors to work for a much farther horizon, 2050, and have more space and time to develop their outputs towards large global impact and more nuanced local rootedness and relevance.
Additional information:
What are the components of the Impact2050 multi-year programme?
- Elevate National Startup Roadshow (July 2019 – Sep 2019) – This one-day bootcamp training was hosted in main cities around the Philippines, serving as an avenue where innovators are given info sessions where they learn about the real-life problem that they can solve, introduced to tools that they can use to solve it and promote to them Impact Hackathon as an avenue where they can turn their ideas into MVPs that can be supported and incubated by investors.
- Impact Hackathon (Oct 30 to 31, 2019) – An official attempt to break a Guinness World Record under the category of the World’s Largest Hackathon by October 30-31, 2019. The event will happen at Smart Araneta Coliseum and 10+ cities across the Philippines having a total of at least 7,000 heads in Manila alone and the rest from other cities.
- 2050fest (Nov 2019) – This is the ultimate pitch and culminating festival event for the Impact 2050 program for 2019. The event will happen at the The Eye at Green Sun Hotel, Makati on November 19, 2019.
- Incubate 2020 (Jan to Dec 2020) – This is Impact 2050’s year-long growth program starting this 2020, where startups will be given support and training by Impact Hub’s top mentors and partners. This step is part of the pockets of the Impact2050 to make sure that there is a follow through to the teams that will win in the event.
6. Who can join?
Innovators, entrepreneurs, professionals, basically everyone from the Philippine ecosystem who is interested in learning more about the startup ecosystem, entrepreneurship, innovation, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and more.