SSE Riga: ESI student innovation programme

Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga) led the ESI Innovation Programme, a two-year initiative designed to teach young students across Latvia about sustainable entrepreneurship. Civitta was one of the programme’s lead partners, working alongside SSE Riga and a broad coalition of academic and industry organizations.

Reaching and engaging students from across Latvia’s higher education institutions – not just SSE Riga’s own student body – required building a coordinated communications and outreach effort capable of drawing in a diverse, nationwide audience, including international students.

The programme also needed to deliver practical, real-world entrepreneurial training across four distinct tracks (education, incubation, inspiration, and sustainability consulting), while coordinating a wide network of academic institutions, industry partners and mentors over a two-year timeframe.

Civitta was responsible for the programme’s communications, its inspiration-track events, and post-incubation sustainability consulting, working in close coordination with SSE Riga.

Key activities included:

• Building and running a full communications campaign across social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram), a dedicated website, newsletters and other channels
• Co-organizing the “ESI Sustainability Challenge” hackathon together with RIMI, SEB and Ecobaltia
• Delivering 23 webinars featuring local startups, including Longenesis, FIXAR, YoPlayDo and Nordigen
• Representing the programme at local industry events to attract new participants and share its results and achievements
• Holding 10 consultations with incubator graduate teams to advise on next development steps, bringing in industry mentors
• Managing communication with programme partners and supporting administrative coordination with SSE Riga

The programme engaged 801 students from 16 educational institutions across Latvia, with all activities delivered in English and international students making up 31% of participants.

It produced 25 innovations, 35 partnerships with local companies, and 10 new startups, demonstrating the programme’s ability to translate entrepreneurial education into real ventures and collaborations. Beyond these outputs, the programme had a lasting impact on participants’ professional development, motivating many to launch their own sustainability-focused businesses.

Services Provided:

• Communications strategy and multi-channel campaign management
• Hackathon co-organization and industry partner coordination
• Webinar programming and startup engagement
• Post-incubation sustainability consulting
• Programme partner and administrative coordination