The first traveling boot camp

A boot camp is literally a training camp or rigorous workshop.
The Social Enterprise Boat Camp is an intensive training and co-creation event with outstanding mentors and speakers of international calibre, a unique occasion in an unusual setting – on the open sea.

For centuries, the Mediterranean sea has been considered as a generous sea, crossroad of exchanges of commodities as well as knowledge and experiences. Today, the sea is witnessing the most dreadful of all times: from an open sea – able to welcome and connect what the earth divides – it is increasingly turning into a ‘closed sea’, theater of human tragedies, shipwrecks and rejections.

As a response, we want to embrace the concept of Mare Nostrum inherited from our ancestors: a space of discovery, encounter and crossbreeding of cultures.

With this spirit, we have decided to start a journey on the open sea. An intensive boot camp on social enterprises will take place not indoors in any convention center or university classroom. But, sailing with a compass in our pocket, looking for new routes.

The Social Enterprise Boat Camp will offer intensive working sessions on the creation and strengthening of inclusive businesses with high social impact, building on the expertise and  support of mentors, speakers, workshop leaders and ecosystem contributors.

During the two-day journey on board, selected business models that have been tested on the market will be put forward.

The Businesses cases come from a representative sample of Enterprises tackling social issues in a wide range of sectors: education, welfare, environment, mobility, energy, social housing, food and agriculture, ITC for development, migration and others.

On day 1, the business cases will be x-rayed and assessed in order to single out their major strengths and weaknesses.
Participants will play different roles within the frame of an investment committee.
Plenary sessions will complement the activities of the working groups through the voices of world renonwed entrepreneurs.

On day 2 in Barcelona, an event with local social entrepreneurs community, will expand the boat campers’horizons and perspectives.

On day 3, in an ideal relay race, each group will handoever its business case to a follow group that will conclude the analysis. “Wrapping up” pitches showcasing the selected business cases will be addressed during the closing plenary session.

Team, talent, marketing, branding, business plan, financials, impact, innovation technology, and storytelling will be the cross-cutting themes throughout the working groups activities and the plenary sessions.

Seasoned and successful entrepreneurs, skilled investors and ecosystem players will bring the added value of a a knowledge repository available on request by the working groups during the journey.

Through the disassembling and reassembling of the selected cases, participants will be enabled to draw viable business plans, identify effective forms of funding, define branding strategies, resort to well-suited impact measurement tools, either to launch a start-up orstrengthen fully operational social ventures.

The work on the business cases will serve as a powerful tool for participants to significantly widen their knowledge and skills that prove to be necessary to build successful social ventures.

Additionally, the Boat Camp will offer a privileged space to trigger an enriching dialogue, knowledge sharing, networking, partnerships creation and collective building.