Ashoka gathers changemakers in Paris

On June 16-23, on the occasion of its 30th birthday, Ashoka organised in Paris, a unique gathering of changemakers from all over the world. The “Changemakers’ Week” designed around 2 main events, one open to everybody – the “Changement City”, and the other one more specifically orientated towards practicioners, – “the “Changemakers Campus”- gave everybody the opportunity to discover social entrepreneurship as a growing sector and see through field visits, conference and workshops the promising solutions to address social challenges today and tomorrow.

The« Changemakers City », June 16-19, saw more than 800 participants discovering social entrepreneuship through 30 meetings and events in Paris and its region.The « Changemakers Campus », June 21-23, offered participants the opportunity to think around appropriate strategies to scale social change. More than 1000 changemakers participated in 11 thematic working groups and over 50 interactive sessions.

On the Campus, a workshop focusing on mobile technologies and their potential as a tool for social change. The objective was to help project leaders build innovative tools around technolodies and inspire entrepreneurship in the sector. Anne Roos-Weil, co-Foudner et Managing Director of PESINET,  facilitated this interactive workshop with two other Ashoka Fellos using mobile technologies for social good: Hilmi Quraishi, co-Founder and CEO of ZMQ Software Systems, and Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya, CEO of Ekagon Technologies. After briefly describing their projects, the threes social entrepreneurs facilitated small group discussion with participants – be they social entrepreneurs, telecom operators or just  people curious about this promising field -.about their potential needs, challenges or questions.

You can see the video, synthesis and photos of the event on Ashoka’s website.