Economic Impact and Entrepreneurship

Students from every school and all undergraduate degrees at IE University come together in this dynamic program where they are introduced to some of the most complex issues and challenges facing societies. They develop a working knowledge of the disruptive technologies that are applied to address these challenges and contemplate their implications. Through this experience students develop an entrepreneurial mindset by ideating, validating and developing innovative business models, which can be applied to societal challenges that can serve to make positive change over the long-term.

Ultimately, through the IE Challenge, student teams tackle real-world problems by conceptualizing and designing proposals to help a startup advance, amplify or scale their impact to achieve one or more of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Twelve corporations, business schools and associations teamed up to look for the best start-ups to support our society, help the economy and reinvent the world together after the COVID-19 pandemic. Together we screened more than 500 start-ups and selected the 9 most promising start-ups that pitched during the summer of 2020. The winners of the competition won mentorship programs from the participating organisations, credits to scale their business in the cloud and many other prizes from all the partners. See more information here.

The UNWTO arranged the SDG Challenge to promote all SDGs globally. The objective of this Competition is to encourage the global innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem to embrace sustainability and to deliver impact during the United Nations Decade of Action starting in 2020. IE participated with both mentors and masterclasses as part of the program.

In April 20201, IE University launched the first Sustainability Venture Day in Latin America, a cutting-edge, highly competitive virtual event designed to identify and support start-ups that have the ability to create sustainable solutions to everyday problems faced by businesses—whether private or public—so as to improve their operations.

July 2020: The first Sustainability Startup Award was present to Stay Humble or Not, the Master in Management alumni startup that regenerates high-quality athletic-wear from recycled materials.

December 2020: Mola Oceans, a sustainable maritime startup developed by students from the Master inManagement program, was awarded the Sustainability Startup Award at the December 2021 Venture Day Madrid.