Event agenda
Monday, 18 May 2026
08:00 - 09:00
Check-in & Breakfast
09:00 - 10:30
Agriculture Meetup: Soil, Biodiversity & Regeneration
An informal Agriculture Meetup over breakfast for those working across food, biodiversity, and regeneration. Connect with peers, exchange perspectives, and explore shared interests in a relaxed, open setting.
2 speakers
Authentic Fundraising with Family Offices and Long-Term Investors
Fundraising is more than the pitch. In this interactive workshop for 25 participants, explore how trust, timing, and authentic relationships with family offices and institutional investors lead to more effective, resilient fundraising.
2 speakers
Building Impact Finance Communities
This invite-only roundtable brings together key ecosystem players to explore how a strong, coordinated impact finance community can be built.
5 speakers
Hosted by
CEE Capital Alliance: Building Stronger Impact Funds Together
A closed-door exchange for CEE-based impact VC and PE fund managers to align on shared challenges, strengthen portfolio outcomes, and explore how regional collaboration can help build new funds and compete globally.
1 speaker
Hosted by
Indigenous Perspectives on the Polycrisis: What Is Your Role in the World That Is Arriving?
A small-group circle with Indigenous leaders to reflect on how we hold capital, make decisions, and relate to living systems, inviting personal responsibility, deep listening, and learning from lived resilience.
6 speakers
Marc Breakfast & Get Together
A relaxed gathering over breakfast for the Marc community to reconnect, share experiences, and explore how the network can support social and green entrepreneurship, strengthen collaboration, and shape what comes next together.
1 speaker
Hosted by
The Science and Practice of Democratic Resilience
How do you act when you know a society is under serious strain and before it's too late? And what does it actually take to defend democracy when the pressure is on?
3 speakers
Hosted by
09:00 - 12:30
Investing for Impact: A Masterclass for Angel Investors
How can angel investors deploy capital for both returns and systemic impact? This masterclass explores how to integrate impact into investment strategy, governance, and portfolio design, combining real-world cases with practical tools for decision-making.
2 speakers
Hosted by
09:30 - 10:30
Impact Idea Speed Dating
A fast, fun, and low-threshold networking session where participants can exchange ideas, explore impact-related challenges, and meet many new people through a series of short, inspiring conversations. No preparation needed — come as you are.
2 speakers
10:30 - 11:00
Official Opening
We open Impact Days ’26 together. A collective moment to pause, connect, and reflect on our kuleana, the responsibility we carry in shaping the future and holding the tensions that define our time, between innovation and nature, stability and change.
2 speakers
11:00 - 12:30
Holding the Tension: Decisions That Shape the Future
After short impulses that frame the key challenges of our time, we move into Future Tables. We engage 40+ decision makers from business, policy, and investment in small-group dialogues exploring the tensions shaping our economies and societies.
4 speakers
13:00 - 14:00
(Session in German) Enabling Impact: Strengthening the Framework for Social Innovation
How can Austria unlock the full potential of social innovation? How enabling frameworks, smart regulation, and targeted incentives, inspired by European best practices, can support new solutions, attract investment, and scale impact across sectors.
4 speakers
Hosted by
Closing the Gap in Women’s Health: Innovation, Investment and Impact
Women’s health still faces major gaps in access, research, and care. This session explores how innovation, funding, and collaboration can scale solutions where they are needed most
6 speakers
Fireside Chat: Fireworks and Frameworks
Witness Lisa & Charly Kleissner’s 26-year impact journey, exploring how intentional co-creation can shape investing, relationships, and systems across the tensions of nature and technology, stability and change, and extraction and regeneration.
3 speakers
Regenerating Agriculture: From Fields to Systems
How do we scale nature-positive agriculture? How can government, corporates, farmers and private investors drive collaboration that strengthens healthy landscapes, restores biodiversity, and builds resilient food systems.
6 speakers
Hosted by
13:00 - 14:00
System Rebuilders: New Ways to Run Science, Climate & Energy
Curated impact ventures present real investment opportunities. Go beyond pitches into active dealflow, engage directly with founders, explore scalable solutions, and identify partnerships shaping the next generation of impact markets.
7 speakers
14:30 - 15:30
AI and the Rise of the Entrepreneurial Workforce
AI is reshaping work faster than systems can adapt. This session explores how entrepreneurial skills, innovation culture, and new ways of working can unlock productivity, while addressing social shifts and where capital is starting to flow.
5 speakers
Doughnut Economics in Action: Rethinking Business Design
How can businesses and investments create regeneration, not extraction? This interactive roundtable explores how Doughnut Economics can reshape business design, capital flows, and entrepreneurship within planetary boundaries and social foundations.
5 speakers
Hosted by
Rewiring Private Wealth: From Preservation to Regeneration
Private wealth shapes the world, yet too often protects itself while externalising risk and cost. We explores how wealth holders, advisors, and families can shift capital from preservation and accumulation toward regeneration and long-term system health.
5 speakers
The DNA of Successful Ventures
From deep tech to regenerative food and prison reform, we explores the DNA of successful ventures. What enables lasting impact across sectors, and how do founders build solutions that endure, scale, and reshape systems beyond their immediate domain?
4 speakers
14:30 - 15:30
Building the Case for Housing: How Innovation Unlocks Investment in Affordable Construction
Exploring how innovation in construction can reduce risk, cost, and timelines, making affordable and social housing more investable. This session connects investors, developers, and innovators to unlock capital and scale housing supply.
2 speakers
Grounded Solutions: Entrepreneurship & Impact Investment in the Global South
A roundtable on entrepreneurship and impact investment in the Global South, exploring authentic, locally rooted solutions, North–South collaboration, and how capital can better align with indigenous knowledge and real-world contexts.
13 speakers
Public Innovation Agencies as Market Shapers: Financial Instruments and Beyond
Public agencies shape innovation. This roundtable explores which instruments truly enable growth, how public funding can crowd in private capital, and how policy and procurement can better support scalable ventures.
10 speakers
14:30 - 15:30
Human-Centered Intelligence: Health, Risk & Global Systems
Curated impact ventures present real investment opportunities. Go beyond pitches into active dealflow, engage directly with founders, explore scalable solutions, and identify partnerships shaping the next generation of impact markets.
6 speakers
16:00 - 17:00
Designing for the Billion: Disability & Inclusion, and Business Opportunity
Over one billion people live with a disability, yet remain underserved by most markets. This session explores how inclusive design can unlock innovation, new business models, and long-term value creation across Europe.
4 speakers
From Breakthroughs to Ventures
Strong innovations are emerging across Europe. This session explores how support ecosystems can better connect founders, venture building, capital, and public instruments to turn ideas into viable ventures.
5 speakers
Hosted by
How Europe Wins: Meeting the Grid Challenge
Europe has the ambition and capital for renewables, but the grid is the bottleneck. This session explores where to expand, digitalise, and make the grid smarter, more flexible, and more resilient for the energy transition.
4 speakers
Hosted by
Who Pays for System Change?
This session explores how institutional capital can become core drivers of system change, shifting from marginal allocations to strategies that move markets.
5 speakers
Hosted by
16:00 - 17:00
Investing and Invested: Sustainable Mental Health Solutions
Mental health is critical yet underfunded. We explore how to build and back investable solutions, while addressing founder wellbeing and long-term resilience. What makes mental health ventures scalable, and how can the ecosystem support healthier systems?
5 speakers
Multigenerational Impact: Leadership is Togetherness
Exploring how investment decisions can reflect multiple generations, this session combines reflection and dialogue to challenge assumptions, surface insights, and translate them into personal commitments for more responsible, long-term impact.
2 speakers
16:00 - 17:00
Resource Reimagined: New Ways to Use, Grow & Move
Curated impact ventures present real investment opportunities. Go beyond pitches into active dealflow, engage directly with founders, explore scalable solutions, and identify partnerships shaping the next generation of impact markets.
6 speakers
17:30 - 18:00
18:00 - 19:00
Impact Garden
An open-air space to connect over drinks and snack pre ViennaUP Opening Night. Spontaneous conversations, informal networking, and relaxed exchange, the Impact Garden offers a place to meet, recharge, and continue the dialogue beyond sessions.
Hosted by
18:00 - 19:30
Impact Salon
An invitation-only space for partner speakers and Impact Maker pass holders to connect over food and drinks. Designed for meaningful exchange, trusted conversations, and building relationships that can lead to collaboration and real impact.
19:00 - 22:00
ViennaUP Opening
For this year's Opening Night, the Vienna Business Agency brings together founders, investors, and ecosystem representatives from around the world in none other than the Vienna City Hall.
Hosted by
22:00 - 23:55
Impact Afterglow - PARTY
Keep the energy going at Impact Afterglow! The official afterparty of Impact Days. Join us for a night of music, connection, and celebration with a live DJ and the community that makes impact happen.
Tuesday, 19 May 2026
08:30 - 09:30
Breakfast
09:30 - 11:30
My Money Story: Rethinking Our Relationship with Money
A guided dialogue exploring personal relationships with money. Through deep listening and structured sharing, participants reflect on how money shapes their choices, emotions, and decisions, creating space for trust, connection, and new perspectives.
1 speaker
09:30 - 12:30
Activating polycapital and community for changing systems
Most capital funds solutions, not systems. This deep dive explores how different actors can deploy financial, social, political, and human capital to shift incentives, structures, and outcomes at scale.
5 speakers
Impact Funds Deep Dive - Building the Next Generation of Impact Funds
Impact investing is being tested. What’s working, what’s not, and what needs to change? This deep dive brings fund managers and ecosystem players together for an honest conversation on capital, risk, and the future of impact funds.
5 speakers
Leaders Deep Dive: Designing Businesses for the Doughnut Economy
How can businesses be designed to regenerate ecosystems and create social value? This session explores how organizations and investors can embed impact into business models, align incentives with planetary boundaries, and ensure long-term value creation.
3 speakers
Hosted by
Making Agriculture Investable
What does it take to make agriculture investable? This deep dive explores what investors need, where the real barriers lie, and how business models, risk structures, and value chains must evolve to unlock capital and scale opportunities in the sector.
5 speakers
Start-up Deep Dive - Scaling Impact: From Traction to Systems Change
What does it take to scale impact, not just growth? This deep dive explores how entrepreneurs can build repeatable, outcome-driven models, work with existing systems, and expand reach through partnerships to achieve lasting, large-scale change.
1 speaker
Hosted by
13:00 - 19:00
(Field Trip) Rooted Agriculture and Impact Investment
Walking/Hiking Tour at Hundsheimer Berg and Dinner at a vine tavern in Prellenkirchen. Location: Hundsheimer Berge, Hundsheim and Prellenkirchen
3 speakers
Hosted by
14:00 - 16:00
Mingle Hero: Navigating ViennaUp Conversations with Confidence
Continue your journey in ViennaUP. Build confidence, enter the room with ease, start better conversations, ask for follow-ups naturally, and leave feeling connected, without pressure or awkwardness.
1 speaker