The seminar will focus on the challenges of Impact Investing by Prof. Filipe Santos, a leading academic expert in social entrepreneurship and social innovation. Prof. Filipe Santos holds a Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University and is currently a Professor and Chair of Social Entrepreneurship at Católica Lisbon and a Visiting Professor of Social Entrepreneurship at INSEAD. Apart from his academic career, for which he has received numerous international awards, Filipe Santos was the first President of “Portugal Social Innovation”, a government-led initiative that aims to catalyse a social investment market in Portugal to consolidate the social entrepreneurship and innovation eco-systems.
The last ten years have seen the development of a social innovation ecosystem in Europe and the emergence of an impact investment field that seeks to achieve both financial returns and societal impact. The promise is that impact investing will mobilise billions of euros for scaling the social innovations that can generate a more inclusive and prosperous society. Professor Filipe Santos will argue that this promise is likely to fall short of its expectations due to the challenges of scaling social innovations. The answer to these challenges may be a focus on the role of Tech for Impact in three different segments that he will detail: Tech for Efficiency, Tech Platforms and Deep Tech.