Themes: Partnerships

17 Sep 2025, 09:30:00 - 19:00:00 (GMT+8:00)
Conrad Singapore Marina Bay

(Please note: this is an off-site event, held at Conrad Singapore Marina Bay)

Food is a lever for systemic change, touching health, climate, and community. With collaboration Grow Asia Investment Forum with IMPACT WEEK we are bringing the urgency of food systems transformation directly into IMPACT WEEK 2025, asking: How do we move from industrial agriculture to regenerative abundance?

Celebrating Grow Asia’s 10th Anniversary with founding partners ASEAN and the World Economic Forum, this forum showcases investment-ready solutions that embody IMPACT WEEK’s vision of systems that nourish rather than extract. Delegates will engage with blended finance models for regenerative agriculture, digital innovations that empower smallholder farmers, and gender-inclusive value chains that rebuild rural prosperity.

This isn’t just about funding better farming—it’s about co-creating investment pathways that transform food from commodity to catalyst for shared well-being. At IMPACT WEEK 2025, we don’t just talk about regenerative systems. We architect them, together.

17 Sep 2025, 11:00:00 - 12:15:00 (GMT+8:00)
Impact lab 4 (Level 4 Suntec Convention Centre)

The most transformative sustainable finance models are emerging from Public-Private-Philanthropy-Partnerships (4Ps) that align around shared impact for a well-being economy. Corporate philanthropy plays a pivotal role in this ecosystem, bridging commercial interests with catalytic impact through strategic co-investment alongside public and philanthropic partners.

Beyond traditional CSR, corporate philanthropy has evolved to be a catalytic force—using grant capital to de-risk commercial investments while leveraging broader corporate assets. This session will explore how corporates can serve as both catalytic funders and strategic partners, collaborating with different stakeholders to fund innovation, crowd in private investment, accelerate sustainable transitions, and generate long-term value.

Models will be highlighted that integrate philanthropy with corporate strategy within 4Ps frameworks to drive scalable impact. AVPN will also introduce ASPIRE (Asia Partnership for Investment in Resilient Economies), a multi-stakeholder initiative aimed at unlocking scalable, people-centred finance for climate action and the SDGs in Asia.

18 Sep 2025, 10:30:00 - 11:30:00 (GMT+8:00)
Impact Lab 3 (Level 4 Suntec Convention Centre)

The energy transition in ASEAN is not solely a technological challenge, but also a structural and economic one. Advancing national energy goals in isolation will fall short; instead, a coordinated regional approach is essential to ensure energy remains reliable, affordable, and sustainable—while bolstering economic resilience and industrial competitiveness.

ASEAN has laid important groundwork through initiatives such as the ASEAN Power Grid, the ASEAN Plan of Action for Energy Cooperation (APAEC), and the Enhanced ASEAN Power Grid MoU. The next step is to shift from fragmented national efforts to a coherent regional system, underpinned by harmonised infrastructure, regulatory frameworks, and financing strategies.

This session convenes energy ministers, multilateral banks, regulators, and planners to explore how greater regional integration can accelerate both the energy transition and economic transformation. Coordinated power systems have the potential to reduce costs, attract investment, and strengthen ASEAN’s industrial competitiveness in a decarbonizing global market.

18 Sep 2025, 11:30:00 - 12:30:00 (GMT+8:00)
Impact Lab 3 (Level 4 Suntec Convention Centre)

ASEAN is at a pivotal moment as digital infrastructure rapidly expands, and governments push to improve access to affordable, reliable, and clean energy. Without careful coordination, these dual priorities risk clashing—putting pressure on power grids, slowing decarbonization efforts, and entrenching inefficiencies. However, with strategic frameworks, digital infrastructure can become an asset rather than a burden in ASEAN’s energy transition.

As the region’s digital economy grows, data infrastructure—particularly hyperscale data centers—is emerging as a significant energy consumer. Yet, if effectively integrated, these hyperscale’s can help tackle the very challenges they contribute to. They can anchor investment in clean energy, support grid resilience, and promote regional energy integration.

The question now is whether ASEAN can bypass outdated models and position itself as a global leader in aligning digital growth with a sustainable energy future. With the right policies and collaboration, the region has a unique opportunity to shape a model where digital and energy transitions work hand in hand.

18 Sep 2025, 10:00:00 - 11:00:00 (GMT+8:00)
Impact Forum (Level 4 Suntec Convention Centre)

Global production and consumption systems currently drive material waste, social inequality, and environmental degradation. The critical question is how to reimagine global value chains to shift from waste to worth.

This session, positioned as an East-West bridge, examines how these systems can evolve from linear extraction to regenerative flows, with industrial material recycling serving as a key entry point. Central to this shift is redefining waste—not as mere byproduct, but as a vital resource within a circular, interdependent economy.

From metals to microplastics, transformation will be emphasized as a systemic change involving diverse actors across finance, industry, policy, and community. Anchored in partnership with Michael Smith of Regeneration VC, the discussion explores how industrial recycling and design-led innovation can reduce emissions, enable circular business models, and unlock new wealth creation. It also examines how culture, capital, and cross-sector collaboration can embed regeneration into the global economy.

17 Sep 2025, 16:00:00 - 17:30:00 (GMT+8:00)
Impact Lab 2 (Level 4 Suntec Convention Centre)

In a world marked by rapid change and overlapping crises, the responsibility for shaping the future cannot rest solely on the next generation, nor should the past be the burden of those who came before. What’s needed now is a new kind of leadership—shared, intergenerational, and regenerative.

This session challenges traditional ideas of leadership succession and legacy. It is not about transferring power or debating who leads, but about uniting generations around a common purpose to lead together. When young people are seen not just as “leaders of tomorrow” and elders are respected as keepers of wisdom, we unlock a more holistic model of leadership—one that combines urgency with patience, imagination with experience, and courage with care.

Participants will explore how to design institutions, movements, and financial systems that embody this intergenerational ethic. The goal is to shift leadership from a vertical hierarchy to a collective model of stewardship.

16 Sep 2025, 13:45:00 - 15:30:00 (GMT+8:00)
Impact Lab 4 (Level 4 Suntec Convention Centre)

From climate change to global health, we live in a time when the stories that matter most are often the hardest to tell—and even harder to hear. As trust in media declines, misinformation surges, and audiences turn away from complex narratives, how can storytelling still serve as a catalyst for societal transformation?

This panel brings together the actors at the frontlines of impact storytelling and will examine how capital, creativity, and collaboration can shape stories that are seen, believed, and acted upon. It will explore the evolving role of media as a tool not just for reporting facts—but for sparking empathy, amplifying marginalised voices, and influencing systems change.

18 Sep 2025, 09:00:00 - 11:00:00 (GMT+8:00)
Impact Lab 2 (Level 4 Suntec Convention Centre)

Universities are more than centres of learning—they can serve as epicentres for inclusive urban transformation. With their research expertise, intellectual capital, and convening power, universities are uniquely positioned to address entrenched social and environmental challenges. Sunway University’s Desa Mentari Community Development Programme illustrates this potential, revitalising a marginalised, high-density urban community through data-driven solutions, student involvement, and multi-stakeholder collaboration.

This workshop explores how universities can become anchor institutions for urban resilience, partnering with communities, local governments, and businesses to co-create solutions for urgent social issues such as poverty, housing insecurity, and systemic inequality. It showcases how academic research can influence policy, inspire innovation, and deliver practical support beyond campus walls. Participants will engage in hands-on work to design adaptable, community-focused frameworks for transformation, tailored to local needs. The session also highlights the importance of embedding real-world challenges into curricula, nurturing student leadership, and practising inclusive governance.

It poses a powerful question: What if a university’s legacy was not in rankings, but in the lives and neighbourhoods it transformed—through bold, collaborative Public–Private–People Partnerships that begin just beyond its gates?

16 Sep 2025, 13:30:00 - 15:00:00 (GMT+8:00)
Impact Lab 1 (Level 4 Suntec Convention Centre)

Helping Homeless Families Find HOPE through Project 4650 highlights a critical tension in today’s social support systems: how to provide safety and compassion without fostering dependency or disempowerment. Emerging from the urgent needs of families living in Interim Rental Housing (IRH) blocks in Singapore’s Siglap division, the initiative reveals the layered challenges of poverty, housing insecurity, and fragmented services that often trap families in prolonged instability.

More than a welfare scheme, Project 4650 is a model for collaborative governance. Spearheaded by then MP Dr Maliki Osman, the project brings together government agencies, businesses, and community groups to co-create an ecosystem of transitional, empowering, and dignity-based support. It asks vital questions: how can public assistance uplift without creating long-term dependency? How can communities show solidarity without letting compassion become entitlement?

This session explores the design and scaling of “transitional support” frameworks that integrate trust, accountability, and empowerment. It invites us to rethink social services—from static safety nets to dynamic springboards—and to cultivate a shared culture of contribution over consumption.

17 Sep 2025, 14:30:00 - 17:30:00 (GMT+8:00)
Impact Lab 4 (Level 4 Suntec Convention Centre)

In a world facing deepening social, ecological, and economic disruption, transformation is no longer a choice—it is a necessity. Yet while impact capital continues to grow, the kind of capital needed to drive systems-level change remains scarce. Too often, brilliant ideas fail to scale because the infrastructure that enables lasting collaboration and integration—the “connective tissue” of change—is underfunded and overlooked.

This session, co-hosted with Catalyst Now and anchored by the 99 for Humanity initiative, explores how we can reimagine capital as a force for coherence rather than fragmentation. It invites participants to consider how funding can move beyond isolated innovation to support systems integrators, enable cross-sector ecosystem building, and embed shared value frameworks rooted in community wisdom, aligned policy, and long-term trust.

Through storytelling, immersive dialogue, and bold future-framing, the session offers a chance to experience what it means to fund the deeper infrastructure of transformation—where impact is not only sparked, but sustained, scaled, and stewarded over time.