Catalysing collaborations that affect systems change is central to Catalyst 2030’s mission and a powerful reason for members to join the organisation. The network has so far birthed 92 collaborations and the number is constantly increasing. The recent General Assembly on 22 February, themed Scaling Change, showcased more than 20 collaboration opportunities.
A new interactive segment was introduced to the assembly format which allowed social innovators to pitch their projects, businesses or ideas to Catalyst 2030 members for collaboration and support in order to scale.
Catalysing Collaboration
Amanda Kiessel who spearheads the Catalyst Market, the largest Catalyst collaboration with 160 members, co-chaired this session on Catalysing Collaboration.
Demonstrating the power of collaboration, Kuhan Pathy, of Kuala Lumpur-based Masala Wheels Enterprise, and the other co-chair, reflected on his journey with Catalyst 2030. “When I joined Catalyst 2030 three years ago, we were shaping the social enterprise ecosystem in Malaysia. The collaboration with members who gave input and shared their country’s policies made the development of Malaysia’s national social entrepreneurship blueprint possible. And the hard work and contributions from core membership ultimately positioned Catalyst 2030 as a strategic partner in Malaysia’s blueprint development.”
Interactive Sessions
The pitching sessions were categorised under the following categories: Economy and Livelihoods, Technology, Education, Arts and Film and Mental Health.
Each category showcased powerful innovations and opportunities for collaboration.
Economy and Livelihoods
James Fiero of Eco Capacity Exchange pitched Better Money Solutions – Equitable digital exchange and is looking to mobilise “unprecedented” capability to make it happen.
Maria del Pinar Lunar of Pili Luna, presented Blue Economy. With her patented formula Maria turns discarded fish skins into sustainable material for new products, which can generate “new ventures, community development, alternative and sustainable inclusive businesses” in coastal regions.
Honduras designer Pili Luna’s pitched her patented formula for turning discarded fish skins into sustainable material, to potential partners at the General Assembly.
Technology
Scott Frankum of the Jaipur Crafts Festival says that the big search engines do not recognise handmade crafts and their Sustainable Development Goal dimensions . These are buried in e-commerce by commercial offerings. Scott’s Open Letter Initiative advocates that big tech companies remove the barriers to information on handmade crafts.
Andreas Papp ‘s Peace Eye – Emergency AI is a tool that combines state-of-the-art technology, like earth satellites, with local knowledge and information to provide early warning signs of conflict. The information garnered from these two can be shared with local communities and peace actors who can mediate and diffuse potential conflicts before they happen.
Kamillah Sandars of Greater than Equal presented her project on Fashion – NFTs blockchain supporting smes – offering information to those wanting to learn more about the role of these tech offerings and seeking organisations for case studies.
Education
Oliver Percovich, of Skateisan, developed the Good Push Alliance to share his Learning through Skating programmes in Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Africa with other social skate projects around the world. The organisation has grown from 30 to 850 projects in over 100 countries, and is looking for more projects to join the alliance.
Ekaterina Matveeva shared Lingo+, a free platform that promotes multiculturalism to equip teachers – working in international schools institutions and bilingual schools – with multilingual skills to create supportive, multicultural environments for children and youth. They want to share the training with teachers at schools, universities and institutions in order to make a real difference.
Nicole Swedlow presented Compass Education’s global network of educators sharing systems thinking and sustainability tools with schools. Compass Education believes that until there is shared, universal understanding of sustainability and people have learned to think systemically, nothing fundamental will change. Run by volunteers, the organisation has 2800 educators in 96 countries, working in 200 formal school programmes, and is looking to ramp up to share their tools more widely.
Arts and Film
Frascisco Alcala of Home storytellers spoke of how his Refugee Film – Power of Girls – helps to communicate the plight of refugee girls and women through sharing their stories.
Punetta Roy of Yuva Ekta Foundation spoke about Expressive Arts for Juvenile delinquents, a platform that uses the arts for healing young people. Through performances, youth from different socio-economic backgrounds share stories about their different realities. Punetta is seeking collaborators and examples of best practises to help the organisation work with juvenile offenders.
Willie Workman Oga, shared his Climate Music Video in the hopes of finding connections and support to take this message to a global stage.
Mental Health
Saundra Williams of Restore Hope spoke about Women’s Depression in Liberia and the organisation’s new mental health programme for post-emergency contexts. The programme trains lay community members to become the providers of therapy and has had significant success. They’re in the process of scaling and are looking for funders and scaling partners.
Ingrid Mara of Mindfully Yours shared a new idea to support women who lack access to education with online support in programmes on areas like creating resilience. She hopes to co-create educational support with the women themselves and seeks collaborators and partners.
More about these Collaborations
To find out more about the above collaborations, watch the Catalyst Collaborations at GA | March 2023 video.
You can also visit the Catalyst 2030 Collaborations website page to explore member collaborations. Members who are signed into the member portal will be able to join open collaborations.