Why Our 8th Anniversary Has Us Focused on Infinity
Turning eight has us thinking about the future and our potential to make an infinite impact.
enpact is turning eight this year, and to celebrate we’ve developed a new symbol that represents our ambitions for the future: the Infinity 8 enpact!
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “infinity” as an unlimited extent of time, space or quantity. In mathematics, infinity symbolizes, well, infinity. People in general associate the word infinity with the symbol ∞, which looks exactly like the number “8” sideways. Throughout history, the symbol has been used by various civilizations to represent eternity, plenty, prosperity and hope.
For our eighth anniversary, enpact is introducing the Infinity 8 enpact, which symbolizes that enpactors are committed to aspire toward creating infinite pathways for opportunities and growth in their work to support entrepreneurs across the globe.
We are focusing on strengthening our collaborations with our partners around the world who make it possible for us to identify challenges and consolidate the proper resources needed to support entrepreneurs and their ecosystems.
Part of this collaboration is sharing our experience as a global organization operating not only within diverse markets with varying demands but across borders, time zones, and cultural differences. Infinity 8 enpact stipulates that infinite impact is only possible through active collaboration that celebrates and utilizes differences. In concrete terms, Infinity 8 enpact has 8 goals:
- Setting a global foundation of resources provided to all enpactors around the world to enable their work
- Providing a platform for partners to add and exchange value (the enpact Partner program)
- Giving voice to entrepreneurs to share their narrative to a wider audience through which they can unlock new growth opportunities
- Promoting entrepreneurship as an accessible, possible and high-potential career path for anyone who would like to seek it
- Creating a culture of transparency within enpact and its community
- Creating a space for individuals within the organization to voice their opinions and push for change
- Utilizing our global position and the nature of our projects to bring people together and eliminate cultural barriers
- Utilizing our platform for raising awareness about the realities of different entrepreneurship ecosystems; their success, their challenges, and the way forward for a truly collaborative global ecosystem
Turning eight should reflect positively on enpact’s community and employees. We are grateful that, through the best practices and process that we were able to build and share, we have created meaningful, lasting collaborations. For example, our long-term mentors Hermann Gams and Harald Katzenschlager with Dream Academia, our long-term partners the TUI Care Foundation, and our long-term supporters, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, the Berlin Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises, Drosos Foundation, Siemens Stiftung and more.
We’re also grateful for our entrepreneurs and alumni who constantly return to pay it forward and support entrepreneurs in the enpact network, such as Ghassan Halawa, Co-Founder of Parachute16 and Emelia Ainooson.
With the mindset of being infinite, enpact is hopeful to create a strong sense of belonging whereby the organization attracts good people to undertake an entrepreneurial venture that never ends with infinite access to support.
“For enpactors, who are the organization’s biggest asset, this young-yet-old-enough milestone is the point where we challenge each other to create a unique company culture.” – Matthias Treutwein, Co-Founder and Managing Director, enpact.
The challenge of Infinity 8 enpact is also welcomed positively by Beverly Chogo, enpact’s Country Lead in Kenya, who started her enpact career one year ago.
“Internally, enpact creates a very pleasant work environment where employees feel appreciated, trusted and valued. Meanwhile, we continue building emerging economies in our own small way through entrepreneurship. I also believe that keeping our diversity by having people from different parts of the world join the team is key to enpact’s future growth,” Chogo said.
The goal of being infinite is reflected in the way enpactors help each other to shoot for the stars. By making everything transparent, whether it’s the work being done, the impact being made or the organization’s shortcomings, enpact wants to see its enpactors grow together on this journey. The trip to infinity will be a complex one with many challenges ahead and much change on the horizon. What is relevant at the moment might be outdated in the future, and our goal is to embrace change and welcome it into our working dynamic.
enpact has been empowering entrepreneurs since it was founded in 2013 and will continue to rethink traditional approaches to make a positive change. With its combination of mentoring capacity building and financial support, enpact hopes to shift the mindset of the entrepreneurs it works with and enable them to become catalysts for change in their industries.
Overall, Infinity 8 enpact marks an important journey in empowering entrepreneurship across the world. But, one thing remains the same, which is our joint spirit of perseverance.
We are thankful for these past eight years of challenges and growth and look forward to many more years to come!
