Building resilient ecosystems demands significant time investment and intentional collaboration, yet these priorities often go unnoticed until a crisis strikes. In times of emergency, the strength—or weakness—of an ecosystem can dramatically affect a city's response efficiency, determining how well stakeholders coordinate efforts and mobilize resources, ultimately minimizing or amplifying the damage.

This session, co-facilitated by Instituto Caldeira & RegenBeings and draws on the real-life experience of responding to the catastrophic flood that devastated half of Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2024. Lacking necessary resources and a reliable ecosystem, local partners had to act swiftly and adapt to the crisis.The Instituto Caldeira’s approach to tackle the challenges brought by the crisis was to create a strong sense of community through the VIBES Model for Community-Driven Resilience: a set of actions that allowed them to transform adversity into an opportunity for growth and resilience. VIBES stands for ‘Visualize Efforts’, ‘Inspire Through Events’, ‘Bet on the Future’, ‘Engage with Experts’ and ‘Strengthen Partnerships’.

As cities around the world grapple with growing populations, climate change and resource constraints, the need for innovative solutions has never been greater. This session delves into how we can effectively bridge the gap between the pressing challenges cities face and the transformative solutions that can address them.The session will begin with a panel discussing the critical issues urban areas are encountering—from infrastructure stress to housing shortages—and showcasing new innovative solutions already making a difference.

The panel will share real-life examples of successful urban innovations and discuss the partnerships, technologies, and strategies driving change.Later you will hear from the startups that have been pre-selected to work with the Lisbon City Council on three main social challenges: 1) Quality of Education, 2) Access to Healthcare and 3) Integration of Migrants. These startups will showcase their impactful projects that are already making strides toward creating a more inclusive and sustainable Lisbon.

In a world facing ecological limits, we must rethink how we build, own and run companies. This session explores how businesses can be redesigned to prioritize sustainability, resilience and purpose over financial extraction and limitless growth.

he session begins with a keynote highlighting the urgency of a new business paradigm, sharing cases, and the mindset we must have if we want to rethink business. Following this, a panel of pioneering companies will share real-world examples of their transformative approaches. In the interactive breakout, participants will divide into three focus groups—‘Build’ (startups and new ventures), ‘Own’ (legal structures and ownership models) and ‘Run’ (scaling and operations)—to collaboratively shape new pathways for how to make better business decisions in the 21st century.

The challenge of building collaborative ecosystems that create lasting impact requires innovative strategies that connect startups, corporates and diverse partners. To achieve this, innovation ecosystems must be designed to foster synergy, leverage multiple methodologies, and drive impactful solutions.

Join Beta-i, Sociedade Ponto Verde, MEXT: Mota Engil Next and Vodafone in this workshop dedicated to addressing these challenges through collaborative ecosystem building. The session will begin with insights from key speakers who will highlight successful examples of impactful partnerships. Participants will then dive into hands-on group activities, receiving practical guidance and actionable tips, while using a free tool that has facilitated thousands of collaborations worldwide. Each group will work together to develop new ideas and strategies, with a final presentation sharing key insights on how to build collaborative ecosystems that generate meaningful and sustainable impact.

In order for the public sector to meet its social, economic and social sustainability challenges, cross-sector collaboration is needed in new forms that harness the power of social innovators and from the emerging European GovTech movement.

In this workshop, we will focus on knowledge sharing and scaling up best practices of co-creation between social innovation actors and public sector benefitting from experiences from new and path-breaking cooperation within the GovTech area.First, we will hear from different speakers who will provide examples of innovative ways of cross sectoral co creation from different parts of Europe.

Afterwards, participants will divide into groups to elaborate on and provide feedback on the examples given. In the end each group will present their insights from each discussion.

In a landscape where underrepresented founders struggle to access the funding they need to thrive, we must rethink how we approach fundraising and support within the startup ecosystem. This session explores innovative strategies to bridge the funding gap, emphasizing the importance of inclusivity and equity in financial opportunities.

The session will highlight the critical need to address this funding disparity, presenting statistics and real-world examples that illustrate the challenges faced by underrepresented entrepreneurs. We will from a panel of successful underrepresented founders and ecosystem builders that will share their stories and innovative fundraising strategies that have led to success despite systemic barriers.In the interactive workshop we will then invite participants to divide into three focus groups. The first focus group, ‘Fund,’ will explore alternative fundraising methods, including crowdfunding, grants, and impact investing tailored for underrepresented founders.

The second focus group, ‘Connect,’ will discuss strategies for building inclusive networks that facilitate connections between underrepresented founders and potential investors, mentors, and supporters. Lastly, the ‘Advocate’ group will identify ways to advocate for systemic changes that promote equity in funding and support for underrepresented entrepreneurs.