22/04/2026
On April 17, the Impact Hackathon, organized as part of the joint project of The European Social Innovation Alliance, ended.
During two weeks, 20 teams from Estonia, Germany, and the Netherlands went through different workshops and developed their social entrepreneurship ideas. The teams learned about business plan development, market research, prototyping, marketing, sales, and pitching. Each team also had its own mentor to help them focus on the topics that were most critical for them.
The teams emphasized that the hackathon helped to understand how to take a project from idea to business, which is scalable. The next steps for most are to create a first version of a product or service so that they can ask customers for feedback and eventually enter the market.
The winner was Soyl Food, who got two tickets to CORE summit. Soyl Food addresses the problem of soil degradation and declining soil fertility in agriculture, which leads to lower crop yields, weaker soil structure, reduced biodiversity, and greater dependence on chemical inputs.
The European Social Innovation Alliance is a joint project of Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund Niedersachsen, Development Center of Võru County, Diakonie Deutschland, Diakonie Schleswig-Holstein, FASE, Good Deed Foundation (Heateo), Kennisland / CAOP, Ministry of Economics, Affairs & Communications Estonia, Ministry of Economics, Labour & Energy Brandenburg, Ministry of Interior Estonia, Ministry of Labour Luxembourg, Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment Netherlands, National Foundation for Civil Society (KÜSK), SAP, Social Entrepreneurship Network Germany, Sustainable Business Estonia, Social Enterprise Netherlands, Social Innovation Lab Estonia, Tallinn University, TU Dortmund University, University of Tartu, University of Utrecht, University of Gelsenkirchen, University of Heidelberg, Wider Sense. The lead partner is Social Impact. The project is co-funded by the European Union as part of the ESF+ Social Innovation+ Initiative.
