More than 130 professionals from the impact investing world attended the kickoff Impact Investing Congress organized by seif in Zurich on January 19th, 2016.

The congress took place in Zurich’s historic Helferei, where stakeholders with diverse backgrounds – from OECD members to angel investors to investment bankers to social entrepreneurs themselves – met to talk about impact investing from various angles.
A series of morning lectures gave the audience a good overview of the issues at large, and afternoon sessions drove a deeper discussion of the issues in a series of smaller interactive workshops. The day closed with a panel discussion by three organizations that are driving the creation of new social entrepreneurship ecosystems.

A number of themes came to the forefront during the course of the day:

One big point of emphasis during the day was that it is becoming increasingly necessary to see collaborations between different sectors, including public bodies, private corporations, and philanthropic institutions. Collaborative investments from these sectors were almost unheard of ten years ago, but are playing an increasingly large role in driving the impact entrepreneurship ecosystem forward.

seif thanks all the participants and speakers for a stimulating and exciting day, and the seif team looks forward to seeing new developments in this field at the seif Impact Investing Congress 2017.