By Xiaoxiao Yang T’17
I spent the summer working with Impact Hub, a global network of social entrepreneurship communities, co-working spaces, and programs. The first Impact Hub was founded in London in 2005 with the idea that people who had decided to dedicate their lives to new ways of confronting the world’s issues can find the resources they needed for their project, and meet and 
share with other like-minded people in the same situation. Currently there are 85 Impact Hubs in 42 countries in the world.
I got to know Impact Hub when doing the TuckGO First-Year Project in spring. During the project, I was inspired by the vision of this organization and the positive impact it brings to the social entrepreneurial sector. Subsequently I explored potential opportunities to continue working with Impact Hub over the summer. With funding support from TuckGIVES, I had the opportunity to work on two projects with the Global Growth team.
The first project was to develop a market entry strategy in China, where I looked at different indicators from economic, social, and entrepreneurial perspectives and identified the top cities to enter. The second project was to develop a capital access strategy for establishing new Impact Hubs and expanding existing Impact Hubs. In this project, I conducted a best practice study by interviewing the founders at different Impact Hubs, and did a research on different resources of capital access. The projects allowed me to learn more about Impact Hub, as well as the social entrepreneurial ecosystem. I had the opportunity to interact with Impact Hub founders, social entrepreneurs, and impact investors etc. It is inspiring to hear what they do and why they chose this path. Innovative practices emerge everyday in this fast growing sector, and people strive to navigate through the ambiguity and find the best solution.
The global presence and flexibility of Impact Hub allowed me to gain exposure to different hubs and meet different teams. I had the opportunity to work in both the New York and Vienna Impact Hubs—the latter is also where the headquarters of Impact Hub global company is based. I also attended the Unlikely Allies event in Seattle, the annual gathering of Impact Hub makers, members, and people passionate about social impact topics. More than 500 people from more than 80 different cities in the world came together to discuss social issues in the cities, such as community inclusion/refugee support etc., and how to best resolve them. People with so many different backgrounds came with a shared vision of making the world a better place. It was truly an amazing experience to be part of it.