SocialTech Lab’s Social Impact Generator Hub has been named one of 13 winners of the New European Bauhaus Prizes 2026, earning the title of NEB Champion in the Enablers for New European Bauhaus Transformation category and bringing European recognition to an innovative model of entrepreneurship, sustainability and peacebuilding born in Cyprus.
What began as a bold vision to bring communities together through entrepreneurship and innovation has become a European award-winning initiative.
On 15 October 2026, at the New European Bauhaus Prizes ceremony in Brussels, SocialTech Lab’s Social Impact Generator Hub (The Base by CyprusInno) was recognised by the European Commission as a winner in the Enablers for New European Bauhaus Transformation category, under the NEB Champions strand.
Selected as one of 13 winners of the 2026 Prizes, the Social Impact Generator Hub proudly represented Cyprus on the European stage, demonstrating how community-driven innovation can create meaningful social, environmental and economic impact.
A Bold Idea That Became a European Champion
Located in the heart of Nicosia’s Buffer Zone, in Europe’s last divided capital, the Social Impact Generator Hub transformed a former UN peacekeeping container into the world’s first innovation hub in a buffer zone.
Built through collaboration, creativity and adaptive reuse, the hub has become a welcoming space where entrepreneurs, innovators, researchers and communities from across Cyprus come together to exchange ideas, develop ventures and work towards shared solutions.
Its creation was driven by a simple belief: entrepreneurship and innovation can be powerful tools for peace.
Rather than bringing people together solely to discuss shared challenges, SocialTech Lab set out to create a space where they could actively work together to solve them.
Today, the results speak for themselves:
- 175+ innovation-related events and programmes delivered, spanning entrepreneurship, technology, sustainability and social innovation.
- 7,800+ community members engaged through the hub’s activities.
- 500+ startup teams supported through training, mentorship and venture-building opportunities.
- €1.7 million+ in follow-on funding secured by participating ventures.
- 60% of participants experiencing their first interaction with someone from the other community.
Beyond these figures are the relationships formed, opportunities created and innovations brought to life.
Among the ventures supported through the ecosystem are Pit to Table, transforming discarded olive pits into sustainable materials; NEEMA Labs, developing plant-based leather alternatives from prickly pear cactus; and Mobile Creative Capsule, creating modular spaces that activate underutilised urban areas.
These initiatives reflect the hub’s commitment to the core values of the New European Bauhaus: sustainability, inclusion and beauty, brought to life through entrepreneurship and community collaboration.
A Recognition That Goes Beyond an Award
The New European Bauhaus Prizes celebrate projects that demonstrate how creativity, sustainability and inclusion can transform communities and improve everyday life.
For SocialTech Lab, this recognition represents far more than an international distinction. It validates a model of innovation that places people, collaboration and shared opportunity at the centre of peacebuilding.
It also highlights the potential for approaches developed in Cyprus to inspire similar initiatives in other divided and conflict-affected regions around the world.
A Message from Our Co-Founder
During the awards ceremony in Brussels, SocialTech Lab Co-Founder Steven Stavrou was asked what the organisation had learned about helping others turn their ambitions into action. His response reflected on the experience of building an innovation ecosystem across Cyprus’s divides and beyond:
Firstly, a huge thanks to the New European Bauhaus team and broader community for this prize and congrats to all the finalists on their very important and meaningful work.
What we have learnt is that people, especially young people, often already have very strong ambition and ideas. What they are missing are the conditions that allow them to act, and turn those ideas into a reality.
In Cyprus, we saw this very clearly. Our research showed that more than 70% of people in our ecosystem wanted to collaborate across communities, to build something together, but fragmented networks and the lack of shared spaces made that difficult.
So in response we created a space where they could actually build solutions together to shared social and environmental challenges.
And in pursuit of this vision we transformed a UN peacekeeping container in Nicosia’s Buffer Zone into the Social Impact Generator, a neutral space where entrepreneurs, creatives and communities from across our divided island could meet, learn, experiment and turn their ideas and ambitions into action, and most importantly build positive peace across our island.
And since then roughly 8,000 beneficiaries have engaged with our programmes, and many of the ventures emerging from this ecosystem are NEB-aligned ventures who are scaling solutions in circular materials, sustainable urban development, and more.
So our biggest lesson here is that this transformation happens not only when you give people a voice to express their ideas and ambitions, but a safe place, the tools and resources, and a shared reason to create something together, to take action.
This Award Belongs to Our Community
Behind this achievement is a community of entrepreneurs, startup teams, mentors, trainers, volunteers, partners and supporters who have contributed to the Social Impact Generator Hub’s journey.
Their ideas, dedication and willingness to collaborate across communities have transformed an ambitious vision into a thriving innovation ecosystem.
SocialTech Lab extends its sincere gratitude to everyone who has been part of this journey, as well as to the European Commission, the New European Bauhaus initiative and the EIT Community New European Bauhaus for recognising and supporting the hub’s work.
From a repurposed container in Nicosia’s UN Buffer Zone to a New European Bauhaus Champion, this achievement demonstrates that transformative ideas can emerge from unexpected places and that innovation can bridge divides, strengthen communities and build positive peace.
And this is only the beginning.
