Report 2017

Curious about what happened during the Nudge Global Impact Challenge 2017? Take a look at our report on this page and follow the journey of 90 participants from all over the world during this life-changing event.

Report 2017

Check out our compilation video and reward trip video of the 2017 Nudge Global Impact Challenge.

Winners of the Nudge Global Impact Challenge 2017!

The winners have been announced! Congratulations to (fltr) Erin Groot – Hermsen (Unilever), Anacelle Bautista (wild card participant) and Sabine Oudt (ABN AMRO), Best Global Young Leaders in Sustainability!

All photos by Bibi Veth

10 finalists for becoming Best Global Young Leaders in Sustainability 2017

Based on their performance throughout the Challenge, as evaluated by their peers and professionals, 10 finalists have been selected. They will be pitching their Impact Statement on stage shortly, we wish them luck!

Day 3

The Award

The Awards for the Nudge Global Impact Award were created by Bart Ensing. Bart is a Dutch artist that uses wood found in nature for his art. He made these sculptures from the wood of an old olive tree, and desgined them to be robust and open. “Robust, because you have to stay firm to create impact and open because an open attitude is necessary, with an eye and respect for the environment.”

The Prize

The Award is not the only prize the winners of the Nudge Global Impact Award receive. They will also be invited to demonstrate their best skills and talents in another life-changing experience: the MasterPeace walk in Maasai land Kenya. During this walk they will learn all about culture, nature and themselves.

The winners of the Nudge Global Impact Award 2017

The jury listened critically to all the pitches and selected the three winners of the first Nudge Global Impact Award. Big congratulations to Héctor García Montemayor from Heineken Mexico, Michiel de Koning from Heroes & Friends and wild card participant Emily Kennedy, the winners of The Nudge Global Impact Award 2017!

Alumni of the Nudge Global Impact Challenge 2016, finalists of the Nudge Global Impact Award:

 

Lucky Ofurum, finalist Nudge Global Impact Award (Unilever, Nigeria)

“I’ve seen what it is to not have enough to eat.” Fueled by his personal experience Lucky’s impact plan focuses on fighting iron deficiency in the diet of many Nigerian families. For this purpose, he has started a pilot with Knorr (Unilever) to increase the awareness and promote the intake of iron-rich food.

Matthijs van der Veen, finalist Nudge Global Impact Award (BNP Paribas, the Netherlands)

By asking 3 simple questions, Matthijs got 50 of his colleagues involved in sustainability. Thirty of them started to implement the answers they gave to these questions, including Matthijs himself. Matthijs believes sustainable change can only happen if it is completed by a bottom-up movement and with a sustainable mindset.

Héctor García Montemayor, finalist Nudge Global Impact Award (Heineken, Mexico)

Héctor’s impact plan addresses the problem of water use in the clothing industry, aiming to reduce water usage by upcycling part of it. Hector, together with Heineken Mexico, is determined to change the Mexican textile industry.

Bart-Jan van Roekel, finalist Nudge Global Impact Award (Siemens Wind Power, the Netherlands)

“What’s your sparkle? I am afraid I don’t have one, I have millions.” Bart-Jan organised a sustainability event in The Hague called ‘De Groene Versnelling’ (The Green Acceleration), which allowed over 120 participants to share their own stories and share their sparkles. As Bart-Jan said in this pitch, in the end sustainability is not something you do by yourself, but something you do together.

Emily Kennedy, finalist Nudge Global Impact Award (Youth in Agriculture Initiative, Uganda)

When Emily was in Uganda she noticed a big gap between youth willing to work in farming and opportunities to do so. That made her think: ‘wouldn’t it be cool to buy land and run it together?’. This is how her initiative Youth in Agriculture started. The programme provides education and literally puts food in the hands of those who need it. Emily is committed to ending food insecurity in all of the world.

Michiel de Koning, finalist Nudge Global Impact Award (Heroes & Friends, the Netherlands)

Heroes & Friends is a platform that connects heroes with their friends, to crowdsource initiatives that help do good. Last year Michiel helped match 1000 heroes to their friends, and his aim is to support 1 million acts of kindness next year.

Jury Nudge Global Impact Award

The execution of our alumni’s impact plans was measured and monitored using the evaluation framework created by the VU University in Amsterdam, strategic partner of the Nudge Global Impact Challenge. Based on this framework VU University has selected 6 finalists who may pitch their Global Impact Plan on stage.

Philipp Pattberg from the VU University, Joyeeta Gupta from the University of Amsterdam, Ralien Bekkers from NDC Partnership and Teresa Fogelberg from the Global Reporting Initiative form the jury of the Nudge Global Impact Award. Based on the pitches at the Nudge Summit they will select the three winners of the Nudge Global Impact Award.

Keynote by Blanca Juti, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Heineken

The audience enjoys a powerful video message from Blanca Juti. The keynote is reflected upon by Arturo Robles from Heineken Mexico and Cam Thu Nguyen from Heineken Vietnam.

“There has never been a greater time for game-changing innovations than today.” 

Annick Boyen, VP Sustainable Business, Communications and External Affairs EU Unilever

“What we see is that our purpose-driven brands, grow harder, faster and are more sustainable in terms of profit margin.”

Robert Metzke, Chief of Staff Innovation & Strategy

“The biggest challenge is to make choices, because there are so many good things that we could work on.”

Johanna Meijer, Lead HR Business Partner Growth & Innovation and Quality, Danone Nutricia AMN & ELN

“The responsibility of the company doesn’t stop at the factory gate.”

Keynote from Jan van Betten, founder of Nudge

Jan van Betten gives a short keynote on what Nudge is about and how he believes change can happen.

Welcome by Erik de Baedts, General Director of the Carnegie Foundation

Erik de Baedts opens the evening on behalf of the Carnegie Foundation. The Carnegie Foundation develops networks of ideas, individuals, and institutions to advance teaching and learning, and are hosts of the Nudge Summit in the Peace Palace.

Nudge Summit at the Peace Palace, The Hague

Back to co-creating

10.00 May we have your attention for the #JumpingChallenge #MaasaiDroughtRelief?

Jan van Betten, Ezekiel Ole Katato and Michiel de Koning (an alumnus of the 2016 Nudge Global Impact Challenge) interrupt the co-creation session with an urgent request: “Due to climate change Kenya is facing severe drought. This is killing cattle, the only source of livelihood for many Maasai. Join us in our campaign to create awareness and gather resources to stop the detrimental threat climate change poses to the Maasai people. Help us to make the #JumpingChallenge go viral.”

Do want to know more about the #JumpingChallenge? Visit www.maasai.nl.

Let’s get started

Our young future leaders in sustainability team up with their social entrepreneur and dive into the business growth question.

9.00 Co-creating for a better world

We start with 8 social enterprises pitching their business growth question and picking the brains of our 85 young leaders in co-creation sessions to come up with innovative, creative, out of the box ideas and solutions.

Kees Jan Bender from Groasis

Groasis aims to reduce the CO2 levels in the atmosphere to pre-industrial levels. The solution needs to be realistic, affordable and scalable – and it needs to scale quickly. Team The Challenger will cooperate with Kees Jan to reach the goal of planting 400 billion trees in the next 40 years.

“We can solve the problem of climate change, and even better, we can do it in a way that helps people and planet.”

Mark van Baal from Follow This 

Follow This started a green movement with the idea ‘wouldn’t it be great if Shell took the lead in the transition towards renewable energy?’. Team #TheNudgeSDG and Mark will think of creative ways to make this movement go global.

James Thuch Madhier from Rainmaker Enterprise

James, winner of the Nudge Global Impact Challenge 2015, founded his award-winning social venture to provide a solution to the challenges South-Sudan is facing. James is joined by Team 1 to look at what the preferred funding model for the Rainmaker Enterprise should be.

Sara Wink from Agrics

This East African social enterprise provides small-scale farmers with tools to increase their yields. Agrics’ ambition is to increase food security and income for one million farmers. Together with the young professionals from team Hungry4change Sara will work on the question: How can we, in co-creation with corporates, support one million small farm holders to become innovative and sustainable producers?

Danny den Hartog from Lendahand

“Isn’t it a great idea to use money as a force for good?” That is the idea social enterprise Lendahand is based on, with the objective to connect capital to where it is needed most. Danny will be joined by the young professionals from team Kick in the Nudge to find a way to start teaming up with corporate actors.

Teyler Padberg from Farm Brothers

Farm Brothers has set out to change the current food system into a more organic one, to make it more sustainable for both people and planet. Teyler and team Misfitz will involve in a creative co-creation process of nudging Western European consumers to buy more organic treats.

Floris van der Breggen from Hack the Planet

Floris believes that technology can help solve the problems we face in the world.  Hack the Planet wants to grow financially, to make more impact as well. In collaboration with team I’mpact they are going to work on the business growth question: what is the right funding model to hack the planet in 2018?

Aart Bos from MasterPeace

“I believe that there are 7 million talents in the world, not 7 million problems.” Together with team Youngerly, this inspiring entrepreneur will work on the business growth question: how can we make the SDGs go live (literally and figuratively) with 1 billion people? And how can music make the SDGs go live?

Picking a team

Our 8 social enterprises randomly select a group of young professionals to work with.

Day 2

18.15 What do you stand for?

After an intense session in the outdoors the participants are challenged by team LeaderScope (Rick and Yori) to reflect on what they stand for and how to make the world a better place.

To top off the day, 8 teams are created for the co-creation session of day 2.

Catwalk time! Rick and Yori lead the way

Now it is time for participants to share what they stand surrounded by 85 enthusiastic young future leaders in sustainability. Rick and Yori set the example.

Sonali Doshi (Unilever, USA): “Every good sustainable idea comes from understanding what the other one is facing, not from your head but from your heart.”

Edgar Oriol (Engie, Belgium): “I love music and I love festivals, I wish we could provide clean energy at festivals.”

15.15 Let’s get energised

Our young future leaders in sustainability step out with Peter Oversteegen and his team for fun activities to build energetic teams.

12.30 Coaching sessions

After lunch all participants have a peer coaching session with another participant to develop their leadership skills and to improve their impact plan. They also have a personal coaching session with a professional coach.

11.20 Former participant Ralien Bekkers

Ralien Bekkers shares with us her experience after the Nudge Global Impact Challenge of 2012 and some insights on how to implement the Sustainable Development Goals. As country analyst of the NDC Partnership and former United Nations intern and UN Youth Representative for the Netherlands, she sets the perfect example of creating impact.

10.15 Vincent Stanley, Director of Philosophy at Patagonia

He brings to the table his 40 plus years of experience in the corporate world and shares his vision on the role business has to play in making companies progressively responsible.

Sarah Schiffer from Gispen takes the floor

Talking about her first sparkle that got her involved in sustainability: “I work at Gispen, which is a manufacturing company. My first spark was when I found out that sustainability is not only ‘for sustainability’ but also for business models. The first time I was sitting on the sofa I developed made of 100% recycled plastic, I was like yes!”

10.00 Discussion time!

Young professionals tell each other which person has inspired the development of their career and what advice this person would give them.

9.30 First keynote speaker Inge Brakman

Inge inspires our young professionals with her vision on the tension between economic growth and prosperity for mankind. She also focusses on personal growth and leadership, stating: “A true leader is not only someone who has a lot of knowledge and skills about their job, but also someone who has a lot of knowledge about themselves.”

9.00 Kicking off the 2017 Nudge Global Impact Challenge with Jan van Betten

The founder of Nudge kicks off the 8th edition of the Nudge Global Impact Challenge. “Our commitment to you is that it will be life-changing, it is not a promise, it is a guarantee.”

8.50 Getting all set to start the Nudge Global Impact Challenge

Our 2017 participants arrive at the Woudschoten Hotel in Zeist and receive a warm welcome from Ilse Lettinga, manager of the Nudge Global Impact Challenge. Notebooks and leadership pouches are handed out to kick off this amazing three-day programme.

Day 1