Social Impact Day, hosted by Imperial Business School, brought together academics, entrepreneurs, students, and industry leaders to explore how business, enterprise, and work can be leveraged to deliver meaningful social impact and improve lives worldwide. The event was also attended by Vishakha Yaduvanshi, Consul General of India, and Virendra Sharma, Former Member of Parliament, Former Councillor for Ealing, and Mayor of Ealing, reflecting the importance of international dialogue and collaboration in advancing inclusive innovation and social progress.

The event was jointly organised by the Gandhi Centre for Inclusive Innovation at Imperial Business School and the National Indian Students and Alumni Union (NISAU), and was hosted by Professor Sankalp Chaturvedi, Co-Director of the Gandhi Centre, alongside Sanam Arora, Founder and Chair of NISAU UK.

The day opened with an engaging panel discussion, as Sankalp and Sanam were joined by Saurabh Dwivedi, Editor of The Indian Express Hindi, for a wide-ranging conversation on journalism, leadership, technology, and social responsibility in an increasingly polarised world. Alongside his reflections on media and public discourse, Dwivedi also shared his personal mission to establish one hundred libraries in villages across rural India, an initiative aimed at expanding access to knowledge, nurturing curiosity, and strengthening educational foundations in underserved communities.

“Getting citizens involved in policy making is an important part of being a journalist.”

The panellists reflected on the role of journalism and academia in strengthening democratic values, underscoring the importance of intellectual humility, critical questioning, and empathy when engaging with complex and often uncomfortable truths. Dwivedi spoke candidly about the responsibility of journalists to remain ethical and people-centred amid commercial pressures, online polarisation, and the rise of artificial intelligence. Rather than viewing AI as a threat, he highlighted its potential to democratise access to knowledge and amplify voices across languages, an outlook closely aligned with his grassroots efforts to make learning more accessible beyond urban centres.

The discussion also addressed structural challenges facing India, particularly the need for greater investment in rural education, primary healthcare, and inclusive infrastructure to ensure sustainable development. Audience questions prompted reflections on career resilience, mental wellbeing, failure, and experimentation, with the panellists encouraging younger generations to prioritise purpose over validation and to remain committed to lifelong learning.

Overall, the session highlighted the power of dialogue, compassion, and cross-sector collaboration in driving meaningful social impact - values that lie at the heart of Imperial’s commitment to global engagement and responsible leadership.

Ideas to Impact Challenge 2026

The event explored how entrepreneurship can have positive social impact and address global problems, challenging students to come up with innovative new business pitches in the Ideas to Impact Challenge.  

Eight teams of student entrepreneurs had the opportunity to pitch their ideas to our panel of industry experts, demonstrating how they plan to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges and impact a million lives, with the top three teams receiving start-up funds and continuous coaching, mentoring and business support from experts at Imperial.    

Claiming the top prize of £5,000 was ‘OncoGrid’, a digital cancer navigation and care coordination platform that helps underserved patients across Africa move more quickly from symptoms to diagnosis and treatment. By combining intelligent triage, connected referrals, remote support and community-based navigation through mobile and WhatsApp tools, it reduces delays, loss to follow-up and fragmented care in cancer treatment pathways.

Second prize of £3,000 went to ‘Urify’, a preventative health startup that embeds early screening for chronic kidney disease into a familiar daily habit through a toilet freshener that passively detects urinary biomarkers via a rapid colour-change reaction. By removing the need for active testing, sample collection or expensive equipment, Urify offers a low-cost, scalable approach to early detection of silent chronic conditions, with potential to extend beyond kidney disease.

Awarded with £2,000 of seed funding in third place was ‘Babaas’, providing solar-powered, cooperative drying hubs that enable smallholder cocoa farmers to dry their beans reliably at the farm gate, allowing them to sell at full market prices instead of discounted wet-bean rates. By using off-grid solar energy and second-life EV batteries, the model recovers income farmers already earn but lose to poor infrastructure, while remaining affordable, scalable and financially self-sustaining.

The other teams to participate in the Ideas to Impact Challenge were: 

• CuraShield – A spray-on coating that keeps hospital surfaces antimicrobial for a year
• Apotek.ai – A pharmacy platform that lowers drug costs and tracks antibiotic resistance
• Credit Saathi – An AI coach that helps Indians build a credit score
• D-View – AI seismic sensors that quickly locate survivors trapped under rubble
• Aether Systems – An innovation in renewable energy and carbon capture

A very special thanks goes to this year's judging panel:

• Virendra Sharma (Former Member of Parliament, Former Councillor for Ealing, Mayor of Ealing)
• Esma Koca (Associate Gandhi Centre for Inclusive Innovation, Faculty, Imperial Business School)
• Tina Chen (Founder and Chief Tea Officer, HumaniTea, former i2i Challenge finalist)
• Jack Fraser (Assistant Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship, Imperial Business School)

It was a very close competition this year with lots of impressive and inspiring ideas, so this was no easy task!

During some final thoughts, Mr Sharma discussed the value of ideas, recognising real-world impact and how we can spot opportunities to make tangible improvements to society, now and in the future.

“Your ideas are the future of the world.”