Impact Night 2025 was jointly organized by Founders Space and HdN and held at HdN in Neu-Ulm. Ivanka Burger (Head of Project Development, Transfer and Cooperation at HNU; founding board member of HdN) and Anna Sophia Boden (Operations Manager at Founders Space) hosted the evening.
Keynote speech by Prof. Gehra: Quo vadis, social entrepreneurship?
The event opened with a keynote speech by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Gehra (Munich University of Applied Sciences), who has been advising, teaching, and researching in the field of social entrepreneurship for many years. In his presentation “Social Entrepreneurship – Status Quo and Current Challenges,” he offered a well-founded overview of current developments and highlighted the increasing relevance of social entrepreneurship organizations. He emphasized that even impact-oriented companies should consider marketing and controlling in the start-up phase and explained how impact measurement can be linked to traditional accounting and reporting in order to anchor sustainability and social responsibility at the operational organizational level. Prof. Dr. Antje Wild, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Project Management at HNU, interviewed the keynote speaker in the subsequent Impact Talk, which explored his theses and industry insights in greater depth.
Practical and transfer impulses from the region and the HNU
In the second part of the program, three projects were presented that shed light on impact entrepreneurship from different perspectives and impressively demonstrated the potential of sustainable business models and digital technologies:
- A team from the HNU Game Production and Management program (led by Prof. Dr. Michael Hebel) provided insights into the FLOAT project. As part of the multi-award-winning Meaningful Games, movement data is collected through intuitive gesture interaction to support the development of intelligent prostheses.
- A team from the HNU Communication Design for Sustainability program (led by Prof. Dr. Judith Mayer) presented a project that contributes to increasing safety for women in Ulm through an interactive map and an awareness campaign.
- The regional impact startup The Little Move showed how sustainability and AI can be combined: The company reconditions high-quality used strollers for the secondary market and uses digital technologies for scaling and quality assurance.
High interaction, diverse audience, strong networking
The evening combined scientific depth with practical best practice examples and offered a well-rounded picture of impact entrepreneurship through a variety of perspectives. "We had a colorful mix of guests: from students, researchers, and people interested in starting a business to people who were neither familiar with the House of Sustainability nor professionally involved in sustainability, everyone participated intensively in the discussion. It was precisely this diversity that created a fertile ground for inspiring participants from outside the industry to get involved in impact entrepreneurship," summarizes Anna Sophia Boden.
Following the official program, guests took the opportunity to network over music, snacks, drinks, and a tour of the HdN.
Strong partnerships for impact entrepreneurship
The close cooperation between the parties involved became clear during the evening: At HNU, sustainability is increasingly being anchored in teaching and transfer, among other things through corresponding degree programs. For years, the HNU Founders Space has focused on sustainable and impact-oriented start-ups at the interface with new technologies, and the House of Sustainability acts as a regional hub for sustainability initiatives and is a long-standing partner of the university.
“Together, we are creating a space where social entrepreneurship becomes visible as a driver of social and technological change,” says Ivanka Burger. Impact Night 2025 exemplifies how crucial networked structures and institutional cooperation are for anchoring innovation processes effectively in the region in the long term – and has itself had a special impact.
Contact
Ivanka Burger
More information about HdN: Haus der Nachhaltigkeit Ulm, Neu-Ulm und Region e.V. I HdN
More information about Founders Space: Instagram (opens in a new window)
