Speaker Ondrej Liska: about building supportive ecosystems for changemakers against systemic barriers

Through exciting international lectures our Ashoka Visionaries gained a deeper understanding of the ecosystem and the new forms of social entrepreneurship. 

“The ecosystem work in the Czech Republic has created a conductive environment for changemakers to achieve greater impact”, Ondřej Liška, former Director Ashoka Czech Republic. In the latest edition of the Ashoka Visionary Program he discusses the roots of his work and his broad role as Ecosystem Gardener.

• What is the Social Entrepreneurship Ecosystem?
• How do you build up Infrastructure for Social Entrepreneurship?
• Who are the stakeholders and what do they contribute?
• What is your role in the ecosystem?

Ecosystem map: “It takes a village to raise a child”

In 2013 Ashoka CEE has identified fostering supportive ecosystems for changemakers as one of its priorities. Since then we have encountered many likeminded citizen sector supporters in our region willing to join forces towards this goal. Together we started exploring the state of the ecosystem in our countries. We have been studying what works well to support changemakers already and what still needs to be improved, or what the systemic barriers are.

Together with partners, Ashoka teams in Austria and Czechia have been co-facilitating such gatherings that have led groups to:

• endorse existing ecosystem initiatives in their countries,
• adopt best practice of supporting ecosystem from elsewhere or
• develop new solutions tackling barriers which haven’t been addressed yet

BROADCASTING | raising awareness about effective solutions and social entrepreneurship in general

TRAIN STATION | supporting changemakers in bringing their solutions to other places and thus, increasing their impact

SCHOOL | bringing up a new generation of changemakers; inspiring young people and the wider public with the idea of social entrepreneurship as a career path and changemaking as a lifestyle

GREENHOUSE | supporting early stage changemakers and accelerating existing social entrepreneurs; providing opportunities for education and personal development of changemakers

BRIDGE | building bridges between stakeholders from different sectors and facilitating collective effort in the ecosystem

STADIUM | identifying and rewarding best practices in changemaking and social entrepreneurship field through competitions and awards

MARKET | offering services and products to changemakers directly, e.g. pro bono/CSR programs

GREEN SPACE | focusing on wellbeing and providing space for both formal and informal meetings of changemakers

SUPERMARKET | accumulating and procuring support, pro bono services or products from the private sector to changemakers via platforms

TOWNHALL | setting regulatory framework in which changemakers work

BANK | providing different types of finance for the creation, development and scaling up of effective solutions to social problems