Impact city: Innovation for a better world | Volvo Ocean Race

Impact city: Innovation for a better world | Volvo Ocean Race

Last month, Reporting Insight was invited by Samasource to join their “Impact city: Innovation for a better world” event at the Volvo Ocean Race. How can you make social impact while doing business? Today forward-thinking companies are eager to explore business solutions that supercharge growth and improve social outcomes, breaking the traditional trade-off between financial and social gain.

This event gave us insight in new markets and business opportunities and provided us with tools to grow a business with positive impact. One of the keynote speakers was Leila Janah, founder and CEO of Samasource. She started Samasource because she believes that giving work is the most powerful solution to end poverty. In several countries in Africa, Samasource started schools for people who don’t have the possibilities to earn money, but have the abilities to work and drive to look for a job. Samasource developed several local datacenters where local people are being trained and afterwards get the opportunity to work in this datacenter or setting up an own business, which creates also more jobs for the locals. Leila’s personal story and drive to end poverty, was very inspiring and a message to all entrepreneurs to create social impact with their businesses.

There were a lot of networking opportunities during this event and we ended with a lunch at the Volvo Ocean Race venue.

In the afternoon, we visited the AmCham Diversity and Inclusion event. During this event, a panel debate was organized to discuss various topics regarding inclusion. Key to the discussion was how to deal with diversity and inclusion within organizations. The subjects were:

1. Cultural inclusion
2. Women in tech, generations and more
3. Physical Challenges
4. Gender Identity

The main conclusions from the day were that in order to achieve inclusion, it is important to eliminate stereotyping and to develop communication and sympathy amongst colleagues. Giving and receiving feedback is essential in this process. This should be stimulated and become an integral part of organizations. What can you do yourself? Be curious about people and show interest in each other!