40 Changemakers Share Key Highlights From The Social Enterprise World Forum in Meanjin, Brisbane

What happens when 2800 social entrepreneurs from 93 countries come together to advance the global social enterprise movement? During the Social Enterprise World Forum, Impact Boom asked 40 delegates what their key highlights and takeaways were in an effort to advance the conversation beyond the forum.

In its fifteenth year, the Social Enterprise World Forum didn’t disappoint. More than 5 years after starting work on the Australian SEWF (listen to the back story here), coming together with everybody who helped make it reality felt like a turbocharged wedding, with a deep sense of connection with hundreds of like-minded people working towards a shared vision of a better world. It’s important to note the huge effort of the White Box and SEWF Global teams, as well as the volunteers and countless other partners and leaders who helped make this a reality. A huge thank you to all of you who worked hard over years to make this happen and the wonderful Impact Boom team who were on the ground: Sarah Ripper, Indio Myles and Eliana Cruz.

The week produced a hive of exciting activity, with five urban and regional bus tours, a youth forum, academic symposium, the main forum and many breakfast and evening events.

key themes which emerged from discussion and interviews during the forum included:

First Nations first. Reciprocity, regenerative approaches, interconnectedness & 'we not me' approaches are fundamental on all levels. Indigenous people’s 60,000+ years of knowledge must be at the forefront of the movement.
Systems thinking is vital. Unless we tackle the root causes of the problems we’re trying to address, we are only perpetuating an unsustainable system.
Inclusion and accessibility of all abilities is not just an option.
Strong connection with community and collective action towards shared goals are what helps drive change.
Self care and vulnerability can’t be left aside. This work is hard, burnout is rife and without health, we can’t sustainably create impact.

This year’s forum drew to a close with an energetic handover and celebration, with the great news being that the forum will be hosted in Amsterdam in 2023. We’ll look forward to seeing you there.

40 Changemakers from international backgrounds share their key Insights and learnings from the 2022 Social Enterprise World Forum.

Highlights from the interviews (listen to the podcast for full details)

Jason Jacobs, Catalyst 2030 / Te mana Consortium

Thank you very much Impact Boom for being here at the Social Enterprise World Forum. The connections we have with our universe should be placed from the top to the bottom, and that's why I introduced myself at the end. One take away from the wonderful things that have been happening at the Social Enterprise World Forum is that we'll get it done as a collective entity and force. It's the collective of all of us that will make it work.

Jeremy Canard, Give Industries

It's been great to attend the Social Enterprise World Forum, there has been such a wide variety of topics throughout the last two days. My main highlight of the events has really been hearing about the First Nation point of view on social enterprise and having a bigger picture about potential for a better future for five to seven generations down the line. It's very interesting to hear about climate justice and climate change from a point of view of First Nations Australia.

Hernan Balcazar

I'm a social entrepreneur and I have done lots of work between the UK and Peru. It was a great privilege to be here in this social forum. I attended the academic symposium and have come today to see the stalls. It's very refreshing to see all the activity going on in the social entrepreneurial world in Brisbane, Australia in general, and actually all the effort that is being put into this event. Something that was interesting to me was to see how the Indigenous population is being taken into account in such an important way, and people are starting to develop the idea of Indigenous social enterprises.

This has to be something that is bottom up. It has to be led by the Indigenous people rather than the academic world actually trying to implement a model that is not important to their values or their way of seeing life.

As businesses, we have to step away from this neo liberal idea that we have about businesses and let people design and create their own things.

Lateesha Jeffrey in a fireside chat with Laura Thompson of Clothing the Gaps.

Arianna Watson, Think Enough

My highlight, while difficult to choose one, was the Elephant in the Room conversation with a panel of all Indigenous speakers. They challenged us to go and talk to anyone that left the room before their panel and ask, “why did you leave the room? Was it because of this important conversation?” I'm really glad to be challenged that way, and the fact that's the way that the Social Enterprise World Forum started for me was exciting.

AINNARTUL ADAWIYAH AHMAD TERMIZI, UQ VENTURES

I really love this conference, because this is the first conference I have attended that showcases so many inspiring Aboriginal leaders who are empowered to share their stories, wisdom, and knowledge to help people to connect to the land of Australia.

FIONA WALKER, Tāiki e!

My highlight from this event was getting to connect with other people and networking with organisations.

Amar Singh, Turbans 4 Australia

My highlight has been meeting amazing people, leaders, and innovators from around the world, and it's been so amazing to absorb that energy and see how we can utilise it in our day to day activities make our community, charity's and volunteers better.

Nick Pearce, HoMie Clothing

The Social Enterprise World Forum has been brilliant. Being out in the open space, connecting with like-minded individuals, sharing war stories, trials, tribulations, and just knowing you have got a wonderful, encouraging community rooting for each other is exciting. We're in the business of doing good, and it feels really lovely to be amongst colleagues and peers. I've realised I've got a thousand people who are now colleagues, which is an amazing feeling.

MICHELLE BATES

My biggest highlight is probably what I'm going to take away from meeting so many great people doing small and big things, and leaving with the feeling of being nourished by what I've heard in conversation and from the presenters.

Stephen Mason, Awards Victoria

My highlight has simply been connecting with like-minded people again. Focusing on interventions we're doing in the social/environmental space, coming together, mapping, putting silos aside and working out how to solve all the world's problems.

Nathaniel Diong, Future Minds Network

My highlight has been connecting with people. It's been one of the first times in many years we've been able to see Zoom faces as real people! It's just been fantastic to hear the passion in the room for my work at Future Minds, which is helping young people choose the future they want and have agency over that. We run a lot of programs where we help young people build businesses and learn skills for how they actually transition into work in the future. One conversation I've really picked up is we need to start valuing lived experiences of young people, whether they're coming from a migrant, disabled or person of color background. This will help us understand a lot of the challenges we face are different to different people.

Asha Murphy, Edu-fy

My highlight from being at this event is the random things that happen where you bump into people you've always wanted to meet and then they're there! This event has provided the meeting and networking place for all social entrepreneurs to meet the people they need to.

Matias Salinas, Little Phil

My highlight so far of the Social Enterprise World Forum has got to be connecting with all the amazing individuals here, hearing their stories, and obviously getting more inspired and motivated to go out there and create an impact.

Masaki Yamao, UQ Ventures

My highlight from the Social Enterprise World Forum is the connections I've made throughout the industry of food waste.

Minister Di Farmer addresses the crowd at the Opening Ceremony.

Mariam Mohammed, Super Fierce

My highlight has been connecting with people in real life again. All the different parts of my world have collided into this beautiful mosaic of a forum, and I have loved connecting with people after two years of seeing them in Zoom boxes.

Luke Faccini, Sponge

The highlight of the forum has to be the people to start with. The conversations that happen outside the rooms, meaningful connections and talking about things that matter. But if I had to mention something I heard, it would've been Dylan Alcott being unapologetically himself and that is what it takes for authenticity and connection.

Angharad Lubbock, White Box Enterprises

I am so grateful for the Social Enterprise World Forum 2022, for what it has given this super curious and committed collective that we have in this country.

The highlight for me has been the breadth of participation. We've seen people who represent government, community and everyone in between.

The fact that we've had international delegates here after such a long time apart is such a highlight and the hugs, warmth and genuine care has just taken me by surprise.

Caitlin Stanway, Small Giants Academy

My key highlight has been being able to connect people from different areas of the conference I've heard have a conversation, and be able to connect them up and think about how different people can work in with the work that we do. It's just been really beautiful being able to connect different nodes of the system.

Azima Dhanjee, ConnectHear

I'm all the way here from Pakistan, and my highlight has been finding my own tribe over here.

Lateesha Jeffrey in conversation with Daniel Flynn.

Bobby Ratnarajah, Purpose With Profit

My highlight from the Social Enterprise World Forum is the fact we are no longer alone, whether we are social entrepreneurs or network leaders. We're connecting and seeing what's possible from the many different people solving real world problems. Many of us are not surrounded by the support system we see here, so we are all in isolation doing our parts. But by coming together, we can leverage each other's strengths, access community capital and all other aspects to help an enterprise, organisation or any form of structure grow so we can thrive. If I could say one thing, be more greedy for good.

Brady Cronin, Australian Centre for Rural Entrepreneurship (ACRE)

The Social Enterprise World Forum has been absolutely fantastic. Working with young people and just hearing their real brave truths we don't often hear and how we can build amazing communities and have healthy people, as well as protecting our environment.

Corinne Trang, Anicca Ceramics

My highlight these two days has been people having no filter; people telling stories of failing, standing up again, failing, standing up again. This is basically showing that if you believe in something, you just have to keep going.

Duygu Serbetci, Project Jambo

My highlight of the conference was meeting a lot of amazing and inspiring people, as well as hearing so many beautiful stories. To be able to see the opportunity for collaborating and supporting each other is a pleasure.

Welcome to Country at the Opening Ceremony.

Gary Estcout, Transport for NSW

My highlight from the Social Enterprise World Forum has been hearing the stories from founders; their successes, failures, and the lessons they can share about where things have gone wrong for them.

Brett De Hoedt, Co-emcee of SEWF

What strikes me is the deep optimism of the people gathered here. Not just excitement, but they actually see some possibilities in a world where so many of us frankly might not anymore.

Also, the enormous ambition of people to do far more than just create an enterprise and maybe make some jobs happen is inspiring. People want to change the way the economy works, environmentally, socially and financially. The positivity is fantastic and the scale of the ambition is off the planet.

Cat Kitney, Young Change Agents

Some of my highlights from the Social Enterprise World Forum over the last couple of days has just been the sheer amount of people here. Seeing so many amazing people in one place, the energy in this conference has been really amazing. It's inspired me to think about what else we can be doing and how we can keep growing, improving and having this collective energy to keep moving forward. That's been really inspiring, and it has reignited my passion for how we can keep pushing forward, making things more inclusive. Hearing from different people's stories I think has been really inspiring. There's so much vulnerability being shared, and it seems like a really supportive space.

Hannah Figueroa, Good Cycles

My highlight of the Forum has been meeting all my fellow social enterprise partners and colleagues as well as the mic drops (from Impact Boom especially that I've been such a big fan of for years).

Peter Dowson, Digital Storytellers

For me, the highlight of SEWF 2022 has been the magic feeling of everybody coming back together again after so long; reconnecting, reimagining, reweaving and remembering who we are as people in a space. There's nothing that really beats that live coming together.

Dr. Elise Stephenson, Social Good Outpost

After eight years of working in social impact space, I was just reflecting how wonderful it is to actually see so many old colleagues, but also have them all here in Brisbane coming from across the world, the nation and locally. I'm having a wonderful time and I’m just so thankful to be able to connect with old colleagues and meet new people.

David Sivyer, Feedback Organic Recovery

Feedback Organic Recovery creates community inclusive circular food systems. My highlight would definitely be around bridging the gap between the organisations or social enterprises doing their thing and then finding the intermediaries between that . Perhaps in our situation, there is the funding gap as well. That's been awesome, building that network and then just seeing what else is out there.

Tiah Goldstein, InterwovenHQ

The highlight of the Forum for me has been to be able to see how the conversation around impact linked finance and different ways of using investment is slowly percolating into the social enterprise ecosystem.

Sebastian Conley, Transurban

My highlight has been the conversations around the room collectively with multiple stakeholders trying to solve problems for social enterprises.

Julia-Anna Maier, University of South Australia

My highlight from the Social Enterprise World Forum is definitely all the lovely, amazing and inspiring people.

Hannah Irving, Melbourne School Of Government

My highlight of the Forum has certainly been hearing perspectives from industry professionals, and as someone in academia constantly trying to reach out to industry, it's been incredible being in a sea of people that are really on the ground within communities.

One clear message I'm getting across so many of the sessions is the community really do have the answers, and it's people with lived experience that we really need to be listening to.

There are barriers often for certain people in sharing those stories. In particular, I remember the session talking about recidivism and reintegration to society, and what was really highlighted by the people with lived experiences of incarceration was that to reintegrate you need to hide your incarceration. The ideas are coming from people with no lived experience of incarceration and how to reintegrate, so there has to be a real change in mindset.

Eloise Hall, Taboo

My highlight has been hearing people's heart behind why they're doing what they're doing, and I had the privilege of sharing a stage with Simon Fenech from Fruit to Work, who shared his story. I cried on stage because it was so powerful.

Jean Darling, Cirque De Soil

My highlight of SEWF would be seeing the transition from being social to becoming more climate urgent, and seeing more conversations around regeneration. It is very cool to see how everything is colliding, and we are very much poised for change in bigger systems.

Maria Wynne, Tāiki e!

My highlight for the Social Enterprise World Forum was speaking at the Youth Forum. I got to connect with a lot of young people with similar interests and it was really cool. It was also nerve wracking, but the second I was up there it was just all adrenaline.

Michael Coolican, Circle Group

My key highlight from the Social Enterprise World Forum would have to be the session on social procurement, How Far Can We Go? It was very interesting and an important piece.

Matt Davey, Mend

I have absolutely loved the Forum, and listening to Dylan Alcott on how he is changing the landscape for people living with disability and the way that they can access the world in general was inspiring.

Matthew Taylor, MET Designs

My big highlight was Dylan speaking about inclusive employment, and essentially just being an authentic values led leader. That's a huge takeaway for all of us in this space.

Michael Lim, Beyond Value

My highlight from the Social Enterprise World Forum 2022 is the community. Not just the forum, but the sector itself is relying on how much connection there is and how important community is for all social entrepreneurs. One of my favorite quotes, and I said this at the youth forum was, "if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together." I think the connection that social entrepreneurs have (while they may be leading their own individual organisations, individual missions and goals) and the community that surrounds them is what makes or breaks a social entrepreneur's journey. It can get lonely at times; it can be very challenging, and I think the risk of burnout is always there. But the antidote to burnout is always social connection, and a connection to a community that is supportive. The Social Enterprise World Forum is really just the culmination of all the people in this ecosystem that support each other, whether through podcasts, content, running incubators or startups.

Michelle Smith, The Yunus Centre

My highlight was the session on migrant entrepreneurs. I loved hearing from Luz Restroepo and Hedayat Osyan. Hedayat has a construction business, and this business helps migrant and refugees get paid and meaningful work in Australia. Hearing his commitment and drive to this group of people and gratitude for work opportunities in Australia filled my heart with joy. I was so happy to be here.

Noah Davey, Mend

The highlight of the Social Enterprise World Forum for me is definitely the food, it's next level!

Sandy King

My highlight of the World Forum has just been the range of responses and calls to action. There's been the interpersonal calls that have come from Dylan Alcott's messages, as well as messages from both Kate Raworth and India Miro-Logan Riley. It’s just incredible to think through the personal journey as well as how that plays out in the political manifestations of the government systems we set up.

The finance that goes behind it, systems and global circular economy, regenerative and the redistributive processes are fascinating. These forums are the type of thing you yearn after for years.

Sarah Tate, Gippsland Social Enterprise Collective

My highlight at the conference has been all the spaces in between. That's where the real magic is happening, through meeting new people.

Impact Boom remains committed to helping drive action around growth of the ‘business for good’ movement globally. Get in touch to discover how we can partner to design, develop and deliver capacity-building programs or turbocharge awareness via our media.