The Ashoka
Visionary Program —
Join a new generation
of leaders.

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Are you an executive, a current or future entrepreneur, a changemaker from any sector? Are you striving for a new career, business or social impact pathway in society? Ashoka’s part-time executive leadership program offers a place for you to thrive and become a leader of change.

  • Imagine acquiring all the tools for systems-changing social entrepreneurship including systems change, social business modelling and storytelling in one comprehensive learning journey.

  • Imagine connecting to a community of peers, meeting Ashoka Fellows, and learning how groundbreaking social entrepreneurs are creating a better world.

  • Imagine putting your learnings into practice, combining entrepreneurial success with social impact to solve societal problems in ways you hadn’t thought of before.

Learn more about the program.

  • Evening session in the program cohort, with team spirit and inspiring insights. Image depicts two women sitting in the foreground and smiling at each other, and other people in the background of the room.
  • Group of Ashoka Visionary Program participants and alumni sitting on the steps to the Ashoka Austria Office Vienna, and raising their arms into the air full of energy.
  • The program offers interactive sessions to learn from international speakers on-site & online: Ashoka Fellows, social entrepreneurs, academic experts. Inage depicts participants from behind, sitting in a semi-circle in front of a screen with a program speaker.
  • The program is about collaborating on ideas and celebrating wins. Image depicts the women of the Ashoka East Africa Program, bumping fists in the conference room.
  • The program offers creative techniques like visualisig one's changemaker story. Image depicts the hands of a participant of the Ashoka Visionary Program, drawing a village ecosystem on a white flipchart paper.
  • Two speakers, man in black suit and woman in a blue shirt, of the Central and Eastern European program present to the group with smiling faces, and holding papers.
  • The program brings participants together with ground-breaking Ashoka Fellows and social innovators. In the image, Ashoka Fellow Ana Bella Estévez, addresses the audience at the CEE program opening in 2017.
  • The program is playful, full of creativity and surprises. In the image, a participant of th Ashoka Visionary Program in Central and Eastern Europe, with blond hair and a rose short, blows into self-made paper trumpet. Along with children in the background.
  • New learnings through each of the 7 modules of the program. In the close-up image, a bearded young man and other participants is sitting in the event room and listening intently to the speaker.
  • We bring leaders of change together and spark conversations. Participants stand in pairs on the meadow of the event location hosting the opening of the Ashoka Visionary Program in East Africa.
  • Kick-Off of the program in CEE in 2021 at the University of Economics and Business in Vienna. Women with microphone and two men in the image.
  • Georg Schön, co-director of Ashoka Austria and a key figure for the development of the Ashoka Visionary Program, faces the camera while talking to a woman with short hair at a program opening event.
  • Flipchart with the agenda of a program day

Through the Ashoka Visionary Program, we are giving our participants from all sectors exclusive access to Ashoka’s 40 years of know-how founded on our global experience, tool kits and networks of social entrepreneurs, changemakers and partners.

Apply now

Don’t want to miss any updates? Subscribe to the newsletter of Ashoka Austria (in English), follow us on LinkedIn or reach out to us at visionaryprogram@ashoka.org. 

But wait, who is Ashoka?

Ashoka is the global organisation that has developed the field of “social entrepreneurship” since 1980 and the first and largest community of system-changing social entrepreneurs (aka Ashoka Fellows).

We find and support entrepreneurial talents and system-changing ideas that solve social problems, and then scale their impact. Over 40+ years, we have worked with leading social entrepreneurs, corporations, the finance industry, and public institutions to address the world’s toughest problems in unprecedented ways. We cover topics ranging from civic engagement and full economic citizenship to youth, environment, health and human rights. And we’re on an ambitious mission: to change whole mindsets and systems towards an “Everyone a Changemaker”-world.

Now, we share the best of our experience in the Ashoka Visionary Program.

What our alumni say 

About the program for changemaker skills, entrepreneurial success & social impact

"Why I joined the Ashoka Visionary Program? At that time, I was thinking about scaling the impact that has proven to be successful in Switzerland globally. And the program was the perfect match to support me in this endeavour. There was this notion of connecting to like-minded, forward-thinking people who have similar values, and well, it has proven to be right. My two key takeaways were around impact modelling and systems change."
Michael Lorz
Managing Director at EnableMe Foundation
"Before I joined the program, there were many ideas that we wanted to implement, but we needed to refresh my thinking on how we approach our work, enhance our vision and build new communities that allow us to build beyond what we thought was possible. After working locally in Uganda, I was suddenly part of a global network of alumni, amazing visionaries who helped me to look at my work differently. Also, the ideas of system change and co-creation have been key, putting others on the changemaker journey that we are on ourselves."
Abubaker Musuuza
Ashoka Fellow, Ashoka VP East Africa Director
"Having participated in the Ashoka Visionary Program has helped me and keeps on helping me become a better systems entrepreneur. It also gave me the chance to meet a community of peers with which I will keep on creating and growing for the rest of my career. If you are looking to grow as a social innovator and connect with a network of like-minded people from across the world and sectors, do yourself a favor and apply to the Ashoka Visionary Program today!"
Valeria Duflot
Co-founder of Venezia Autentica
"My major takeaways? That to become a true leader and a changemaker you should open your eyes and senses to learn, to get inspired, to communicate, to appreciate diversity and keep going. The highlight of the whole program was to get to know people from different countries across the Mediterranean and be out of my comfort zone with different mentalities and cultures. I understood and observed the journey of the great changemakers across history and realized that it has never been a big bang or a magical single change. It has always been a long journey of trials and errors, and of persistence."
Amira Saber
Changemaker from Egypt, Member of the Egyptian Parliament
"Having participated in the Ashoka Visionary Program has helped me and keeps on helping me become a better systems entrepreneur. It also gave me the chance to meet a community of peers with which I will keep on creating and growing for the rest of my career. If you are looking to grow as a social innovator and connect with a network of like-minded people from across the world and sectors, do yourself a favor and apply to the Ashoka Visionary Program today!"
Andrea Mörike
Social Business Consultant, Alumna of the Visionary Program
"The Visionary Program gave me much needed time and space to step outside my day-to-day rush of running a business. The program not only provided a learning environment with new toolsets, but it also introduced me to a warm and welcoming group of peers who were ready to support me from day 1. Meeting with changemakers from all around world was amazing! The system change module is my favourite module, since I am a systems builder."
Melek Pulatkonak
Founder of the Turkish Women's International Network & BinYaprak
"The Visionary Program was an eye-opening experience on so many scales, it provided in-depth information on sophisticated topics such as system-change and impact investing, it wasn't delivered only through theoretical information, but also hands-on workshops and real experiences stories of different development practitioners from across the region."
Ahmed Abdelgalil
VP alumnus & Gender and Economic Empowerment Specialist
The Visionary Program was a wonderful experience where I got to meet many like-minded individuals from very different backgrounds. While the content of the program covered a vast range of key topics for social impact work, the network we developed from attending the program was truly paramount. The opportunity to learn directly from the personal and professional social impact experiences of other attendees was one of a kind, and inspired me to continue my drive to make a social change in the world. I hope that the friendships we made during the program will carry on further into the future.
Aziza Khabbush
Senior business analyst for public health
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We have 300 alumni in 30+ countries from the private and public sectors, foundations, NGOs as well as social entrepreneurs. We have a special word for them: visionaries.

Discover their success stories

A hands-on co-creation lab empowering a new generation of leaders since 2015

Since 2015, the Ashoka Visionary Program has been a laboratory of changemaking, in which a new culture of cooperation emerges and new ideas are developed. But this description doesn’t do it justice, so read on to find out more.

A man with grey hair and a younger woman with brown hair standing and talking at an evening event of the program in Central and Eastern Europe. We bring leaders of change together and spark conversations.

5 Reasons to join the pioneering leadership program

1

Bring your changemaking and responsible leadership skills to the next level. Dive into social entrepreneurship on a global scale and learn everything you need to know about the topic to implement your ideas. Expect hands-on, interactive learnings on everything from social innovation to the art of storytelling from the whole spectrum of Ashoka’s expertise.

2

Reflect on your changemaker journey and strengthen your commitment to impact and system change. Get the motivation and purpose you need to act.

3

Or even start (co-)creating your own innovative social entre- or intrapreneurial initiative? Implement your learnings into practice right away by supporting a social entrepreneur or developing your own social enterprise.

4

Learn from expert speakers and other participants from all over the world and receive the key essence of the experiences of the top-notch practitioners who have led their own way. Exchange experiences with like-minded changemakers from diverse sectors and coming up with new ideas together.

5

Become part of the Ashoka Alumni Network, a supportive community of peers within the social entrepreneurship scene with new friendships and opportunities for partnerships.

Hard Facts

  • Part-time program, 9 months (October-June for the CEE region), 7 practice-based modules, program held in three regions: Central-Eastern Europe (CEE), Mediterranean, East Africa
  • 15 days of in-class sessions (Friday-Saturday)
  • Support a social entrepreneur or develop your own social enterprise
  • Group work, case studies, peer reviews, coaching, mentoring etc.

  • 30 multidisciplinary participants in your cohort, per region and year
  • Executives and leaders of change from the corporate world, the public sector, and civil society as well as foundations = pioneers striving for new careers, business and social impact pathways in society
  • Pioneering practitioners as speakers: Ashoka Fellows, other Social Entrepreneurs and experts from the private, public, and non-for-profit sector; last but not least, unconventional thinkers from academia

  • Fulfil three minimum requirements: the desire to become a thought leader and changemaker, minimum 5 years of work experience, English skills.
  • More info about our ideal candidate at About the program.
  • Don’t be shy – go for it! Your future self will thank you. Apply from any country globally. And clarify any questions in our FAQ section (yes, you can join the program if you have a disability, and working full-time isn’t even worth mentioning!).

With ground-breaking social entrepreneurs (Ashoka Fellows) and key experts from business, non-profit, research and the public sector as speakers. Learn more about our value proposition, content and international speakers on the About the Program page.

Group Picture of the program in Central and Eastern Europe in 2021, standing in a long-stretched courtyard with light houses and trees. Arms raised.

How we learned to change the world
so that we can share it with you now

All across the globe, humans are pioneering and implementing real-life solutions — answers to some of the world’s most pressing challenges. These individuals with an entrepreneurial mindset tackle social problems at the root cause with their innovative and practical solutions. We call them social entrepreneurs. In the last 40 years, we’ve selected and supported close to 4000 of the world’s ground-breaking innovators and leading social entrepreneurs (Ashoka Fellows) from more than 90 countries.

Our network of social entrepreneurs provides us with knowledge ahead of the curve: systemic, practical and full of „how to’s“ on how to create systemic impact to meet the needs of communities across the globe. And our work doesn’t stop here. We see patterns and frontiers of innovation that show a way to a better future. We weave a community of innovators committed to building this “Everyone a Changemaker”-world in which everyone is powerful, in which everyone is a giver. We share our findings and insights with the world.

More about Ashoka
Black-and-white image representing the diversity of the Ashoka Fellows and changemakers through a collage of portraits.
Grou picture of the opening of the Ashoka Visionary Program in CEE, in autumn 2021. Participants are standing up, in movements, raising their hands inside the WU University in Vienna.

30 leaders of change transforming together

Learn more about the Visionary Program! Find out what impact the program has had till now and which other details you need to know before applying:

Let’s learn more
About the program 🚀