Ashoka
Stéphanie Schmidt
Stéphanie joined Ashoka Africa Leadership team since September 2017, after 13 years with Ashoka on different continents: at the Global Headquarters in the US, Mexico City and Paris. Stephanie is leading the launch of the “Changemaker Company” initiative in Africa to create more bridges between the corporate world and social entrepreneurs and engage businesses in developing their full changemaker potential. Stéphanie is also an international evaluator for the selection of new Ashoka Fellows and a board member of Ashoka Romania. She started her carrier in management consulting with Deloitte in Paris, and Boston, before joining World Relief in Rwanda for 2 years as program director where she supported the launch of Ikirezi, a social enterprise producing essential oils with rural communities led by Ashoka Fellow Nicolas Hitimana. Stephanie was born and raised in France and holds an MBA degree from ESSEC Business School in Paris. She is a mother of 3.
Impact! Africa Summit 2019: A Platform for Social Innovation and Collaboration in Africa
The Impact!Africa Social Entrepreneurship Summit aims at accelerating social innovations to Africa’s most pressing challenges by Inspiring & Connecting social entrepreneurs, changemakers, investors, and other ecosystem stakeholders across Africa.
In 2018, Ashoka and the British Council held the first edition of Impact!Africa Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa where over 640 people participated from 39 countries. There were 105 speakers including anti-apartheid leader Jay Naidoo, UK Parliament member Baroness Thornton and leading social entrepreneurs inspired and challenged conventional thinking.
We are excited to offer again this platform in 2019 for social change and greater collaboration across sectors for active and aspiring changemakers. Ashoka Africa and the British Council will host the second edition of the Impact! Africa Summit in Nairobi, Kenya on 3-4 December 2019.
The main theme: Collaborative Finance for Social Innovation and how to catalyze social innovation (social enterprise + social entrepreneurship) in Africa through:
- Future Financing Models for Social Innovation: (1) Financing models for Africa – (2) Financial Innovation-The financing continuum: Institutions, services and products; (4) Impact financing/investment;
- A Framework for Social Innovation: (1) Expansion of African social innovation industry (2) Potentialities, strategic development approaches and technical capabilities required; (3) Pragmatic approaches to the development of social innovation, (4) Getting everyone aligned.
The Summit Attendees
- Social Entrepreneurs and Young Leaders - Leading social entrepreneurs and young leaders from across Africa working on a variety of fields including education, youth employment, women employment, environment, access to essential services, etc.
- Social Investors - Foundations, companies, organizations and individuals who are investing in social innovation as their strategy to generate positive impact at a national or regional level.
- Thought Leaders - Representatives of academia and organizations deepening in the concepts of social innovation and social entrepreneurship.
- Policy Makers & Public players - Players able to shape ecosystems to enable social innovation to flourish in Africa.
Why attend the Summit?
Connect- connect with the key drivers of social innovation ecosystems in Africa: outstanding social entrepreneurs and young leaders, investors, companies, foundations, public actors and decision makers
Celebrate-celebrate emerging social entrepreneurs and young leaders with system-changing solutions to societal issues across Africa
Learn-discover new trends and models on social innovation, deepen expertise on Pan-African approaches to social change and on methodologies to scale social innovation.
Co-create-generate new connections between social entrepreneurs, business, investors, philanthropy and public actors.
For more information on the summit, visit the Impact!Africa website.