During the past couple of years, Kolba Lab has run incubation cycles for social start-up ideas, through several thematic Innovation Challenges and a Social Innovation Camp on Climate Change. Apart from those opportunities, our social start-up incubator is always open for applications received through our Random Submissions portal.

For each incubation cycle we filter the brightest ideas using a specific methodology, which can broadly be broken down into the three criteria below:

Applicant’s understanding of the problem (up to 10 points)

Questions we consider: To what extent project’s users’ insights (needs & preferences) were considered? How relevant and timely is the intervention against the identified problem?

Quality of the proposed solution (up to 20 points)

Questions we consider: How innovative is the solution? To what extent does the proposed solution address the problem? Will the solution have social impact?

Capacity of the applicant team (up to 10 points)

Questions we consider: How can the applicant’s skills and experience contribute to the realization of the proposed solution? Does the applicant have commitment/motivation for implementing the project?

Now that you know more about the selection process, your ideas and teams will have more chance to get to the final phases of our competitions. Keep an eye on our Innovation Challenges – in the next two years we will be holding three innovation challenges on different topics! We look forward to hearing your super innovative ideas and collaborating together!