Impact Week in Capetown, South Africa from 04 - 12 September, 2024

The last Impact Week South Africa in partnership with TSIBA Business School was a virtual event during the COVID 19 pandemic in 2020, but that did not stop us from creating impact! #SOUTHAFRICAVSCOVID19 was a 60 hours-Virtual Design Thinking Challenge that created a unique opportunity for bright minds to discuss and engage current and urgent challenges in South Africa during the COVID period. Read more about the 2020 event here.

4 years later, We are elated to be back in South Africa for the first in-person Impact Week South Africa event. Impact Week in partnership with TSIBA Business School will empower over 36 local and international Junior Coaches and 100 young participants with Design Thinking skills that they can use to solve social challenges in the Cape Town community.

Cape Town, one of the largest cities in South Africa and home to over 3.7 million inhabitants with a youthful majority population faces a lot of social challenges including climate change, unemployment, education inaccessibility, substance abuse, health challenges, inequalities, crime among many more problems common in African urban areas. The good news is that these challenges provide a big opportunity for impact creation by empowering youths to solve them. Impact Week’s mission in Cape Town will be to ensure that we support the youths to apply the Design-thinking framework to deliver human-centered and community-centric solutions to challenges in their communities.

With our two-module approach, we will train a new cohort of Junior Coaches by guiding them through a 3-day “Train-the-Coach” phase.

The international and local participants will then take their new role as Design Thinking Coaches and work together with students from TSIBA Business school and other communities in Cape Town to find innovative solutions for local challenges. This defines the “practical phase” and will give the new Coaches the unique opportunity to directly implement what they have just learned, while being guided by experienced Senior Coaches along the journey.

Upon completion of the program, you will be a trained coach who has already applied the methodology. You'll gain key skills through Design Thinking, such as innovation, customer focus, and implementation orientation. In addition, Impact Week promotes local entrepreneurship and social innovation. We enable our local partners to apply Design Thinking themselves and run their own Impact Weeks.

The innovative and customer-focused orientation of the Design Thinking methodology helps all participants to challenge their way of tackling a problem. The unique spirit of the Impact Week experience will definitely inspire you to look at entrepreneurship and social innovation in a completely different light.

We work very closely with the local TSIBA Business School.

TSIBA is a Social Enterprise comprising a Business School, Ignition Academy and Education Trust working together to return highly sought-after people and successful small business enterprises. They seek ambitious, purpose-driven people and emerging businesses who want to take South Africa forward.

TSIBA’s vision is to challenge the status quo of business education through a values-based approach to teaching and learning in a changing world and their mission is to invest in purpose-driven humans and emerging businesses who lead social change. This perfectly aligns with Impact Week’s mission to foster innovation & entrepreneurship as well as intercultural & intercompany exchange through Design Thinking.“ This collaboration is a perfect mix to ensure  youths in Cape Town gain Design-thinking skills, the right mentorship and growth opportunities post-program. We are very grateful for the collaboration and are looking forward to creating impact together!

Upon completion of the program, you will be a trained coach who has already applied the methodology. You'll gain key skills through Design Thinking, such as innovation, customer focus, and implementation orientation. The intercultural experience at Impact Week will also help you gain different perspectives to problem solving as well as build your international network which will be key to boosting your resourcefulness at work as well as create avenues for future collaborations. In addition, Impact Week promotes local entrepreneurship and social innovation. We enable our local partners to apply Design Thinking themselves and run their own Impact Weeks.

Each participating team will work on one focus area. The students can choose their focus area in the application process and get matched accordingly. Then it is up to them to own the challenge and create an innovative idea to tackle it – always keeping the Design Thinking methodology at heart.

Our tracks are: 

Supporting Gender Equality - with Francince Boon

Creating Belonging - with Jen Gerodias

Stimulating Critical Thinking - with Max Gurvits

Improving Mental Health - with Lorine Atieno

Caring for the Environment - with Valentina Freile

Reclaiming Heritage - with Elina Zheleva

The training is free for employees of non-profit companies and universities based in South Africa. 

For corporate participants, the participation fee for the Design Thinking training, including accommodation and meals, is €2,995. 

Not included in the offer are travel costs to and from Cape Town, visa, vaccinations and recreational activities.

Applications for international participants are closed. 

However, if you are a South African applicant working for an NGO or in academia, you can apply here:  

This Impact Week is scheduled in the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC +2:00)

Contact the organizing team for Impact Week South Africa 2024:

We cordially thank Lufthansa Group Airlines for their support in the form of special fares for Impact Week!