A place for possibility: Seven new communities join the Impact Hub Network

In 2026, seven new Impact Hubs joined the Network, bringing perspectives from Beirut, Riyadh, Conakry, Aleppo, Alicante, Mérida and Saigon. Their journeys begin with different local realities and a shared belief: connecting people who want to create change can open possibilities for their communities and the wider world.

Impact Hub Network

Global team

Someone in your city is working on an idea that could make life better. Someone else has experience that could help them develop it. A local organisation understands the challenge they are trying to address. A potential partner is looking for a way to contribute. They may already be working towards a similar future without knowing one another.

What makes someone decide their city needs an Impact Hub? The answer changes from place to place. It might begin with entrepreneurs who have nowhere to turn after a programme ends, talented people working without a supportive community, or a growing economy whose opportunities remain out of reach for many. An Impact Hub starts by recognising what could happen when those people and possibilities come together.

Each of these seven new teams arrives with a different understanding of its community, shaped by the people who live there, the opportunities they see and the barriers they encounter. Together, they share a commitment to creating a place where people can find one another and move ideas forward. Their journeys are unfolding at different speeds. Some have already opened coworking spaces and welcomed members. Others are delivering programmes or establishing the relationships and foundations for their work, with all seven expected to have fully functioning inspiring spaces by 2027. At every stage, the aim is to give these communities a lasting physical home where their connections can continue to grow.

Along a coastline, a lighthouse makes a place visible long before someone reaches its shores. Its light travels beyond its walls, offering a bearing to people approaching from different directions. For someone finding their way through the uncertainty of building a business or pursuing an idea, an Impact Hub can become that recognisable point: somewhere to turn, find company and see a little further ahead.

What gives that light its meaning is the community built around it. In Conakry, that founding vision begins with the isolation of entrepreneurship. Information can be difficult to find, useful connections hard to reach, and decisions lonely to make. The team’s response puts relationships first, building on an existing community and experience supporting women entrepreneurs before opening a physical space. That desire for continuity echoes in Beirut and Saigon. Both teams recognise what can happen when support is tied to the lifespan of a programme: a promising beginning can leave an entrepreneur searching for where to go next. Their ambition is to build communities people can stay part of as their needs change, where a workshop or cohort ending still leaves the door open.

These are different places asking a closely related question: who will be there for the next step? Within an Impact Hub, the answer can take many forms. A peer who has worked through a similar problem. A mentor who asks the question that changes a business plan. A partner who sees the potential in an idea and helps develop it. Building that community means creating reasons for people to return, get to know one another and become part of each other’s progress. It also means looking beyond the businesses within the space to the communities around them. Growth can bring investment, new arrivals and new industries while leaving familiar inequalities unresolved. In Alicante and Mérida, the teams are asking how more of that economic energy can benefit the wider territory.

Alicante’s vision extends from its dynamic city and coast to inland communities, linking entrepreneurship with regeneration, creative livelihoods, and opportunities for diverse talent. In Mérida, questions about the future of Yucatán bring water and environmental protection into the same conversation as health, care and economic participation. In both, the place itself helps set the agenda: its resources, its pressures and the people whose futures are tied to it. This relationship between enterprise and community also runs through the vision for Aleppo, where business support sits alongside plans for creative expression, cultural participation and spaces where people can reconnect. Building a livelihood and rebuilding relationships belong within the same picture of what a community needs to move forward.

In Riyadh, that same relationship takes shape around a community of entrepreneurs developing social and environmental solutions. The team aims to strengthen connections with peers, institutions, and potential partners, with attention to people who face barriers to participation, including first-time founders, women, Arabic-first entrepreneurs, and people with disabilities. Read together, these ambitions reveal something about how an Impact Hub takes shape. Its direction comes from paying attention to the place around it. Who is already doing meaningful work? Who is missing from the conversation? Where do people lose momentum, and what could help them continue? The answers will sound different in every city. That difference is part of what makes the Network valuable.

These seven communities bring new perspectives on how trust is built, how opportunity is shared, and how entrepreneurship can respond to social and environmental challenges. Experience with cultural participation in one place can open a conversation elsewhere. Reaching entrepreneurs beyond a city centre can help another team reconsider who its own community includes. Local knowledge reaches a wider audience while staying grounded in the people and circumstances that gave it meaning. The exchange begins early. Alicante’s connection with Impact Hub Madrid, Mérida’s relationship with Impact Hub Monterrey, and the Saigon team’s experience at Impact Hub Phnom Penh show how new beginnings can draw on relationships already growing across the Network. Each team brings its own judgement and local understanding, along with access to people who know something about the work ahead.

For someone wondering whether to begin that work in their own city, the first questions may already feel familiar. Perhaps there are people whose paths should cross. Perhaps an entrepreneurial community is gathering informally and needs somewhere to grow. Perhaps years of working locally have made a particular gap impossible to ignore. Starting an Impact Hub means choosing to respond. It takes listening, commitment and the work of building a sustainable organisation around a community’s ambitions. It also means joining others who have made that choice in their own places and continue to learn what it takes.

The light becomes visible because people choose to keep it burning. In Beirut, Riyadh, Conakry, Aleppo, Alicante, Mérida, and Saigon, seven teams are taking on that commitment, bringing new life and knowledge to a Network shaped by its communities.

What could become possible if the people working for change in your city had a place to come together? To explore bringing an Impact Hub to your community, contact our Growth team.

A place for possibility: Seven new communities join the Impact Hub Network

You also might like