Over the years, we’ve connected with many experienced and inspiring professionals, who came to share their knowledge at our events. They’ve taught us some of the most valuable lessons they’ve learned over the courses of their careers.
Nicole is known as a multi-award winning social entrepreneur, but she prefers to be seen as an unstoppable messenger of love and human potential; impacting millions of people world-wide with her unconventional models of community development and transformation. Currently Nicole is the CEO of a global movement, Love Out Loud, engaging 4% of the global populous to hit critical mass and shift humanities base line from fear to love.
Investors are increasingly investing in unlisted growth companies via equity crowdfunding. But why? Are they in it for the money, for the impact, or both? Anna conducts research on equity crowdfunding campaigns, companies, and investors at Aalto University. In collaboration with the fintech platform Invesdor, she has assessed investors’ motivations, decision criteria, and sustainability orientation.
Harriet Fagerholm is the Creator and Co-Creator of Intune - a practical tool for developing self and group awareness skills to create balance between the inner and the outer world, and above all in relationships.
Before starting offering her services in her own company, she worked as a pedagogical innovator and Senior Lecturer in Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences for 13 years, where she led and co-created an international BBA Program based on student centered, collaborative learning methods.
Ravi Kanbur is an inspiring speaker, scholar and author of over 250 publications. Lately, he co-authored the International panel on social progress report and manifesto – a better society is possible. He is T. H. Lee Professor of World Affairs at Cornell University. He has served on the senior staff of the World Bank, including as Resident Representative in Ghana, Chief Economist of the Africa Region, as Principal Adviser to the Chief Economist of the World Bank, and as Director of the World Bank’s World Development Report. He chairs the UNU-WIDER.
Regenerative means a thriving circular ecosystem which renews itself, based on reciprocity. As indiginous wisdom holds: we take from nature, and we give back. The current extractive economic system has resulted in an escalating ecological crisis because we forgot to include nature in global accounting systems. Earth Positive is a regenerative economic model which includes nature
Adeo Ressi is CEO of the Founder Institute, a pre-seed startup accelerator that operates in nearly 200 cities worldwide. Adeo has founded or run ten technology businesses, and he has developed a number of innovations that help startup companies. He is passionate about mentoring Founders, space exploration and inspiring people to achieve their greatness.
Yonathan Parienti, former senior executive in major banking groups such as JPMorgan or Bank of China, left a promising career in finance to pursue his passion for social entrepreneurship and philanthropy. He resolved to found Horyou, the social network for social good, to advocate a more humanistic approach to technology.
He introduced Spotlight, the first global social curency, to be used within the Horyou community with the aim to promote philanthropy leveraging social media.
He is a regular speaker in International forums on the subject of “Revolutionizing Philanthropy” or “Blockchain With a Purpose”, and has notably spoken at the UNESCO, the United Nations and other Governmental Conferences on topics related to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Yonathan Parienti had the opportunity to share his vision on leveraging Digital Currency to support Social Inclusion and Positive Circle of Interaction at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Hyderabad, India, being invited by The White House, the U.S. State Department and the Government of the Republic of India.
He shared his insights on “BlockChain with a Purpose” and how this technology can foster Social Good in conferences like the Token Sky forum in Tokyo, the Social Innovation and Global Ethics Forum – SIGEF -, the UBS Philanthropic Forum, the Wealth Beyond Asia Summit, or the World Summit on the Information -WSIS Society – ,organized by the International Telecommunication Union and other UN Agencies.
Mr. Parienti is founder of HoryouToken – HYT -, a leading Utility Token supporting Social Good recently launched on several Token Exchanges. Dedicated to enhance Social and Economic Inclusion, with apotential of Mainstream Adoption, thanks to its disruptive “Proof of Impact” philanthropic mechanism, HoryouToken aims at opening a new path, where BlockChain Technology contribute to building a more Sustainable and Harmonious World benefiting all.
Thomas Westerholm acts as the director of the Disruption Lab at the Turku School of Economics. The Lab’s objectives are to create new understanding of disruptive phenomena in businesses and to create new strategies and business models for business life. His previous career includes business and production development tasks at companies such as Bayer, Neste Jacobs, Steris Corp, Terveystalo, Lindström, and PBI Research Institute. He has also worked as an entrepreneur and consultant developing internationally new businesses and services and conducted digitalization processes within several business areas.
Anu is a value-driven CEO, Leader and Quantum Conversation Coach, who believes in transformation and change. She's a systematic and intuitive leader whose aim is to empower others to be the best version of themselves. As an experienced entrepreneur, she leads and works with creativity and persistence.
Anna Juusela is the CEO and co-founder of We Encourage, an impact start-up developing a completely new digital solution to prevent child and forced marriages and to empower women. We Encourage acts as a fundraising agent for NGOs and Small-Scale Fundraisers whose causes are aimed for helping women and girls. We Encourage Fundraising helps NGOs to serve their customers aka donors better by creating transparency and trust. To accompany their fundraising solution they are building a conversational AI tool for the victims of honor-based violence, forced marriages etc.
Tanja Jänicke is an innovative service designer and have been participating the creation and design of several inclusive platforms, such as Siivouspäivä, Illallinen Suomen taivaan alla, Nappi Naapuri and mesenaatti.
She is also couching and giving key note lectures on themes like participation, inclusivity, co-creation, sharing economy and crowdfunding.
In times of crisis, we need drastic measures. But, what is possible without destruction or end of democracy? What matters of the climate crisis are obvious, which are controversial, and which are probably outside what democracy can manage?
Hampus Jakobsson is an investor focused on climate. He spent the last two years at Blueyard, and before that he co-founded Brisk (folded) and TAT (acquired by Blackberry). He has angel invested in 100+ companies and blogs at www.hajak.se.
Adeo Ressi is CEO of the Founder Institute, a pre-seed startup accelerator that operates in nearly 200 cities worldwide. Adeo has founded or run ten technology businesses, and he has developed a number of innovations that help startup companies. He is passionate about mentoring Founders, space exploration and inspiring people to achieve their greatness.
Mikko is founder of several companies to fulfill his passion. He advices on topics of AI and blockchain, tokenization.
Inbot, his current startup is about trust in people and business networks based on blockchain and AI. Inbot helps companies connect with customers, investors, and key hires all over the world.
Mikko is investigating Token Collateralized Loans, tokenization, blockchain governance so that customers, investors and the community can benefit from value creation of a platform.
Mikko’s keynote will explore, how:
1. We already have a technological abundance, but it is not yet available to everyone due to human greed.
2. The power has shifted to large technological giants, who rapidly erode the funding and power of nation states.
3. The current form of democracy is unable to change the societal model at the pace of technological advances.
4. We need benevolent entrepreneurship to provide universal basic services and equal opportunity participation to the economy.
Richard has over 20 years as an entrepreneur in technology and business development for corporates and organizations in the sustainable, political and civil society sector. In 2017 he founded the online platform IMPACT X – The Impact Business Index. Richard and his team have so far registered, analyzed and rated over 1,000 Nordic commercial companies on their business viability in combination with how their product solves the largest challenges in the world (using their Impact Business Score System). If you need advice on how to invest your capital in Nordic business opportunities with great impact Richard is a leading advisors to the Nordic impact business and impact investing market.
Norded is specialized in custom crowdfunding service packages for companies wanting to launch their product in the large US market.
Jyri Engeström is Co-Founder and General Partner at Yes VC, an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco. He is an investor in Superhuman, CryptoKitties, Lovevery, Public Goods, Iceye, Applifier/Unity, Betabrand, Oura and others. Jyri co-founded two mobile consumer companies: Jaiku, a mobile social network acquired by Google; and Ditto, a mobile local recommendations service acquired by Groupon. He has run product teams at Google, Groupon and Nokia and was the Head of Product at Boosted, an electric vehicle company that created the Boosted Board electric skateboard, selected by Time Magazine as one of the best inventions of 2018.
Meri Helleranta is a vocal advocate for effective social sector investments with 14 years of experience from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. She is currently a member of the European Business Angel Network’s Impact Committee and her work is focused on encouraging entrepreneurs to find their passion in social development. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Eastern Finland.
We have one more super keynote joining us. Vinay Gupta is the creator of Hexayurt, a humanitarian and a technology visionary.
He is the current CEO of Mattereum, which was founded in 2017. Mattereum is an Internet of Agreements infrastructure project, bringing legally-enforceable smart contracts, and enabling the sale, lease, and transfer of physical property and legal rights.
He has long had a humanitarian concern with the condition of the poorest in society and disaster relief. He has spent many years in humanitarian work- the hexayurt has been used as a refugee shelter and is known for being used ad the Burning man.
He was also on the editorial team for economics book Small is Profitable. He is also working on Hexayurt Capital, which is a fund meant to invest in the Internet of Agreements. Previously, he coordinated the release of the Ethereum project, managing communications around the launch of the project.
Arne is the CEO and Founder, Friend Software – the operating system of the Internet. He is a proven serial tech-entrepreneur with several successful exits to his name. In 2002, Arne co-founded and bootstrapped Accurate Equity, a FinTech SaaS and professional services company within equity based incentives design, accounting, valuation and disclosure, until he sold it to a major PE in 2015. The company was renamed Equatex and was sold to Computershare for 419 mUSD in 2018. As investor and Chairman of MeaWallet 2015-16, Arne led the re-structuring and sale of a FinTech SaaS mobile payment infrastructure company (tokenization of VISA, Mastercard and Amex) to INVUO (Nasdaq).
In 2014, Arne co-founded Friend Software Corp which has developed a new independent open source decentralized internet OS. Friend gives the user a virtual computer that can be reached from any device via a browser. Friend Software Corporation believes access to computing is a human right and should not be oligopolistically controlled by the incumbents. Friend seeks to build a world that delivers the promise of the Internet age and unleashes the creativity of every person, outside the grasp of “Big Tech”.
Hi, I am Marcel Gasser, an entrepreneur, mentor, speaker, and digital nomad. But before all of that, I am a human being who lost everything to gain everything, a person who beats the odds, overcame cancer, traveled the whole world in pursuit of finding myself and becoming fully alive. I am a warrior who has found peace, an advocate for making lemonades with the lemons that life throws at you, and a big believer that you have everything inside you to become the happiest and the most successful version of yourself.
Sebastian is the COO of Fundu, a digital platform offering loan based funding. Sebastian has many years of experience from financing. He was responsible for Nordea Crowdfunding, the world’s first equity crowdfunding service offered by a major bank. Later he has worked as a financial consultant with focus on sustainable finance. He is an undergraduate student of Environmental Sciences at the University of Turku
Heidi is the initiator and co-founder of Amara Collaboration. Her and Amara’s vision is to double the worldwide leaders with transforming capacity in order to shift towards a more conscious world, with sustainable, aware decision making. Heidi calls out for more kind, humble, courageous and collaborative approach in this developmental inquiry.
Triin Lõhmus is the progam manager in .Cocoon Founder Psychology De-Accelerator – a 1-year startup de-acceleration program that focuses on startup founders’ personal development instead of the company. She is passionate about supporting people to fall in love with themselves again.
Juho is the CEO and Co-Founder of Sharetribe. Sharetribe’s software helps entrepreneurs and organizations create their own sharing economy platforms (like Airbnb or Uber) quickly and with a low budget. Their mission is to democratize the sharing economy by making platform technology accessible to everyone.
Ulrike Glatz is a thought leader on global impact business and networks. At Glatz Impact Ventures she has launched several impact initiatives. She is passionate about women empowerment and conscious business. She has over 12 years of experience in Management Consulting and Business, is an UNCTAD Empretec certified entrepreneur, holds a Master degree from Passau university / Germany in International Business & Cultural Studies & speaks 5 European languages.
Christian is on mission for long term positive change in business. He has worked almost 20 years with sustainability both as a founder of several companies and as a partner in KPMG Climate Change & Sustainability Services. Christian is passionate about business with impact with ensuring visible and measurable results that support the business strategy and contribute to the company’s bottom line.