The story begins
In London, Jonathan Robinson establishes the very first Hub in the world, an incubator of social innovation and a platform supporting social businesses. The concept soon spreads to Tel Aviv, São Paulo, Stockholm and Amsterdam.
Amnesty connects
The core members of our team get together while working for Amnesty International. We meet Jonathan and become very excited by the prospect of shared space. Petr Vítek, Jakub Mareš, Zdeněk Rudolský and Petr Baše decide to set up the first Czech Hub – one of the quickest and best decisions we have ever made.
Lights, camera... action!
After a record-breaking nine months, we have funds loaned by friends and the space refurbished, and so starts historically only the second co-working space in Prague. Six people and one rabbit hold their breath to see how it goes.
Operation Mitosis
Groundwork for our dream to open Hubs in Brno and Ostrava starts. We have established that the concept of shared space works and would like to transfer it to other cities too. What we, however, don’t know at this point is that we are in for a patience-testing rollercoaster ride full of twists and turns.
Step by step
Things are gradually picking up speed: we have 2000 visitors per year, organize 150 events and have 200 members. We practically always have queues around the block and so decide to build a second bar and a conference room, just to be on the safe side.
Y-U-N-U-S
We want to show everyone what we believe in, thus the Seven Principles of Social Business by Muhammad Yunus are proudly displayed by the entrance and the first year of the Social Impact Awards, a competition for young social innovators, takes place.
Stairway to heaven
Gazing at the stars, we wish we were closer. So we build a stairway to heaven and with great pomp and ceremony open the second floor. Our Hub now covers an area of 1200m2 and has new workspaces, more offices and finally a lounge too!
The four musketeers
In comes Robert Tůma, a long-standing Hub friend, supporter and mentor of the Social Impact Award, who joins our team and becomes an investor regarding the expansion of Hub to Brno and Ostrava.
Ocean's 22
With the arrival of our twenty-second member we became the most numerous Hub in the world. Am I not right, Petr, Kuba, Zdeněk, Martin, Bára, Lu, Veru, Martina, Roman, Kristýna, Lucie, Káťa, Hanka, David, Evka, Danka, Anička, Iris, Dávid, Duško, Peťa and Vojta?
Midwifery for beginners
We help sister Hubs in Bratislava and Yerevan to come into the world. We spend hours on the phone, exchange hundreds of e-mails and basically do all we can so that our little siblings soon transform into fully-fledged work places.
Baby virus
A highly contagious virus called “baby” sweeps through the Hub. Four female team members are affected at almost the same time, and after nine months of furious battling have to resort to taking temporary leave.
La dolce vita
Italophiles and Hub-lovers embark on a legendary roadtrip around foreign Hubs. In a van we speed down the autostradas, visiting our brothers-in-arms in Milan, Rovereto and Florence, learning how to cook the Hub the Italian way.
Four candles on the cake
We are celebrating. Four brilliant years under our belt, surrounded by four hundred members. And while blowing out the candles, our brains fill with four million ideas of how to make the Hub an even better place to work, meet and advance businesses.
Growing
New members come and never want to leave. When even 150 workstations don’t cover our needs, our neighbour luckily leaves the premises next door. Armed with hammers, drills and other assorted heavy machinery, we enlarge our space by another 500m2. Three months later we have a new lounge, three meeting rooms and many new office spaces.
The anniversary climb onto the pallet
For the twentieth time, the bold and the stout-hearted step into the limelight to present their projects. A record-breaking 250 people visit the anniversary Hub MashUp and the applause never ends.
Five stars
The first “Five-Year Plan” is over and it has completely exceeded all of our expectations. At our 5* Party we all wipe a tear or two during touching congratulations we are just stunned how amazing everybody looks tonight.
Challenge accepted
We are successfully closing the pilot phase of our new fast accelerating program. No matter what is the phase of its development or what is its focus, any ambitious project can apply for the Impact Hub 100-day Challenge. Tens of high-quality mentors and consultants have our back and are as willing and as devoted to help as we are!
Global Passport
The Impact Hub family is located in over 80 locations and as we desire to connect it we are introducing new possibilities to our members. Now they can travel to all Hub's locations in the world and enjoy the community and work space similar to ours - all included in their membership fee.
Springing up like mushrooms
We have exceeded the number of 600 members and we have more of them than all other competitive spaces in the entire Czech Republic together. We are very flattered and have set ourselves a goal to bring more great services to life. (And secretly, we are considering an occupation of Prague Airport 🙂 )
MashUp conqueres the world
We hosted very favourite Impact Hub MashUp for the 30th time and thanks to us, it is being hosted in other 20 countries of the world. Now we only have the remaining 40 to entice!
One day at Hub
Our doors are now open also to those, who are not our members yet. They can acquire a Day Pass and enjoy the first-hand experience of the shared co-working spaces and the world of our members.
Edison
We have earned the trust of Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of Czech Republic and are putting together a new team to work within the Edison program on scaling and respectfully developing the most ambitious social businesses of all.
A lot of space for everyone
25th January will go down in history as the date of the magnificent Brno Grand Opening Party. Impact Hub Brno expanded to 3,450 sqm and became the largest European and the world's second largest Impact Hub.
Hub Woodstock
Large spaces present great challenges. Therefore, we took advantage of the Brno hospitality and headed to our first intercity meeting. Over 75 Hub hosts - do you know how many unforgettable moments this brings?
And it's done!
What we started over Christmas, is now being finished with a bang. We have renovated the floors, redesigned the bar, refreshed our furniture, rebuilt the lounge, created a new info desk and once again confirmed that no one has ever drowned in sweat.
A number may say more than a thousand words
- 7 700
- sqm of opportunities
- 220 000
- views of MashUp
videos at SlidesLive
- 17 000+
- members of our
global community
- 36 000
- fans and followers
on social media
- 100+
- accelerated projects every year
-
47 %
- of members were inspired in the Hub to launch new projects
-
48 %
- of members think that Impact Hub played a major role in their success
Surveys for 2016 and 2017 for Impact Hubs in Prague, Brno and Ostrava.
-
57 %
- of Hubbers do pro bono work for other members
-
82 %
- of members are founders or co-founders of companies
- 13
- tens
of team players
- 2,3
- valuable opportunities per new project or deal
- 4
- Hubs in the Czech Republic: twice in Prague, Brno and Ostrava
- 8
- acceleration programs for enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and innovators
- 1,700+
- members of the Czech Impact Hub network
- 100
- Impact Hubs worldwide
