The finalists of the Social Innovation Tournament 2019 “got ready for Dublin” during the SIT Mentoring Bootcamp held from 10 to 12 July at the IRIS Social Incubator in Amarante, Portugal.

IES Social Business School experts on business and social entrepreneurship taught sessions on impact entrepreneurship, societal problems, value propositions, solution architecture, sustainability models, impact frameworks, value generators, and scalability.

With the communications expert Kim van Niekerk, social innovators learned cutting-edge techniques and stepped out of their comfort zone to prepare for pitching their projects at the SIT 2019 Final Event in Dublin on 24 October.

The finalists’ projects came from 11 countries: Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, the UK and, for the first time in the history of the SIT, Croatia and Turkey.

At the Final Event, four prizes will be awarded by a jury composed of specialists from the academic and business worlds: General Category and Special Category 1st and 2nd Prizes of EUR 50 000 and EUR 20 000 respectively.

In 2019, the Special Category Prizes will go to projects focusing on sustainable consumption and sustainable production (SDG 12) including the circular economy.