Thanks to the many donations during our IndieGogo campaign and a matching grant from our partners at Kiwi Energy, at this year’s Future Leaders Summit, we were able to take 15 participants and 4 instructors into the Amazon for training, community building and sustainable business development!

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We happily report that we attained our 5 main Summit III goals:

•Undertake business case challenge on behalf of the Ecolodge which housed us at Rainforest Expeditions – The participants used the skills and tools shared to create marketing plans with new and innovative target markets and presented these plans to the owner of the ecolodge in final presentations

•Connect with local business leaders and entrepreneurs (via panel discussion) – We held our first community panel before the workshop began where over 30 community members and 4 presenters shared their work and knowledge around business, working in Peruvian systems, small business support and courage

•We aim to grow the network of participants in Innovando network by another 10-13 people and include 4 – 7 previous participants to grow their skills. – We had 11 new participants and 4 returning participants and community leaders join us for the workshop

•Focus on previous participants will be to support emerging leaders in the network and to support participants who attended previous summits – We created many opportunities for the group to share their own projects hopes and dreams. The participants were very excited to share and support one another.

•At the summit, they will reflect on what they have learned in building their businesses and in engaging in social activism, etc. – The level of sharing from previous participants on what they have learned in the last 1 – 2 years was invaluable to the newer group. It was obvious that ideas and concepts have been tested and refined and that the previous participants have stepped into clear leadership roles in the community.

Stay tuned for more updates, photos and stories coming soon!