I-Danha: Social Innovation Incubator

“I-Danha – Social Innovation Incubator” is a project supported by the Partnerships for Impact Programme – Portugal Inovação Social, which sets out to help build an ecosystem of social entrepreneurship that encourages ideas to emerge and social innovation projects to take shape in the Beira Baixa region. The initiative is a proposed response to the problems of depopulation and desertification in these territories, taking the form of a regional social innovation incubator.

Creating this specialist incubator will attract new entrepreneurs and talent to the area, with the intention that it serve as a living lab — for testing and experimentation — for prototype products and services addressing the social problems already identified, which can then become tradeable goods and services with global application, that is, capable of being scaled and replicated.

The initiative therefore sets out to help build an ecosystem of social entrepreneurship and innovation that makes a strong contribution to improving people's living conditions, particularly in rural territories, and to strengthening social and territorial cohesion.