Speakers - Ashoka

THE BIRTH OF THE CLUSTERS
When the Ashoka Changemakers’ Week was under design, our main objective was to create an ecosystem
prone to new collaborations, especially between social entrepreneurs, public, and private actors.
At Ashoka, we consider that - whatever the area - concrete solutions do exist, but that they often lack support
in order to scale-up and maximize impact.
Since a two-day long event is extremely brief to be able to solidify new partnerships, we decided to prepare
collaborations in advance by identifying 11 pressing social issues that will defi ne the future of Europe.
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER…
For each issue, a cluster leader (generally an Ashoka Fellow) has helped us to identify the major stakes to
tackle as well as the participants to gather around the table.
We thus invited social entrepreneurs, public actors, representatives of private corporations or foundations,
expert, and journalists to the clusters. For each topic area, we brought together 20 to 40 people from around
the world ready to work on concrete action plans and possible solutions with other stakeholders.
We also received the support from Hystra and McKinsey consulting teams, as well as HEC students, in
developing a working paper on the defi ned topics. This document, which synthesizes the stakes, barriers, and
possible solutions for each topic, was sent to the cluster participants in advance to set a foundation for our
discussion on Monday, June 21st.
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