And that’s a Wrap! - NextGen Takeover 2026
What a couple of days! Ideas moving all over the place, innovation brewing, collaboration, and most importantly, celebration. The NextGen Takeover had it all! When we say it was truly the place to be for youth-led innovation, IT WAS truly the place to be. Our flagship event of the year finally came to an end and we have tons of stories and highlights to share with our network.
Where to start? Of course, Day One: On our schedule, we started with a Pitching Masterclass by Enactus Global's CEO, George Tsiatis, set as part of the overall Ford Accelerator session, helping our newly engaged students prepare for their upcoming competition in May for their mobility-focused projects developed across our 6-week programme. Students started arriving at ExCeL London as our main event of the day followed up from our Regional Qualifiers back in February, with our most awaited Enactus World Cup Qualifier Top 20 taking place. On this note, we want to congratulate our Top 20 teams for their amazing projects and presentations. It is not easy to pitch projects to over 80 judges, and we are confident that, regardless of the final results, the room was filled with innovation, impact, and good competitive spirit. Across all top 20 team projects, we have reached over 5,000 people and positively impacted more than 7,000 lives across the UK and Ireland.
Scenes at the Enterprise + Employability Fair 2026
As Day 2 approached, our Top 20 teams gathered once again as we announced our Top 4 teams qualifying for the final round to decide who will be travelling to Brazil to represent us at the Enactus World Cup 2026!
Starting Day 2 schedule with our annual careers fair, the Enterprise and Employability Fair. A student delight of an opportunity to connect and discover the best internships, graduate opportunities, and placements from the best UK employers. The room was filled, and our students were not disappointed, with corporations like IBM, Mars, British Airways, and HSBC.
In case you missed it, Day 2 had another of our competitions showcasing the best early-stage youth-led projects: The Ideas4Impact Overall Finals. At its core, the Ideas4Impact accelerator is about backing early-stage ideas, developing responsible student innovation, and giving the next generation the confidence and support to turn ambition into real-world impact across the UK and Ireland.
This year, we received over 30 ideas from student teams tackling social and environmental challenges within their communities. Our top teams pitched live at ExCeL London at NextGen Takeover, with four standout finalists: SignLink BSL; Enactus NTU, Potastic; Enactus Birmingham, SafeSip; Enactus Southampton, and Surplus to Purpose; Enactus Newcastle.
Ideas4Impact 2026 Overall Finalists
Taking the top spot… Enactus NTU with SignLink BSL, our Overall Ideas4Impact Winners 2026! Enactus NTU proposed an AI-powered, interactive app designed to make British Sign Language more accessible, helping break down communication barriers and build a more inclusive society.
The quality of ideas this year extended far beyond the final, with 10 teams also showcasing their ideas through a poster exhibition, with attendees voting for their favourite.
Keynote Speaker, CEO and Co-Founder of Mini First Aid, Kate Ball
And now, onto our much-awaited Top 4. Enactus TU Dublin, Durham, Exeter, and Southampton went head to head, pitching their social enterprises to our 100 final round judges. All teams amazed with the variety of their projects, ranging from issues tackling food insecurity to wellbeing, and others addressing global issues reaching communities all the way in Kenya.
In between each team's pitch, our NextGen Takeover ceremony had everything and more! From Samba dancers giving us a hint of what the winning team will be experiencing this year in Brazil, to our amazing keynote speaker Kate Ball, sharing insights from her experience through her ventures.
Samba Perfomance Show at out Celebration Ceremony
A massive part of our ceremony is celebration. As an organisation, we like to recognise those who created the most impact to help us develop the next generation of responsible leaders. Within this, we were extremely glad to announce BDO as our Partner Organisation of the Year, helping us develop and scale our schools programme, NextGen Leaders.
As a showcase of our impact at the school level, one of our NextGen Leaders school teams had the chance to give a presentation on their winning project from last year. A full circle moment recognising and displaying the best of our programme in developing the next generation of responsible leaders as they create positive impact in their communities.
And finally, left to the end of our NextGen Takeover, we were set to announce the team to represent us in Brazil at the global stage for the Enactus World Cup. After a year of hard work, impact, and many connections, the team chosen to represent the UK and Ireland at the global stage is… TU DUBLIN! For the first time in the history of Enactus UK & Ireland, an Irish Enactus team will be representing us in Brazil!
Judges were amazed by TU Dublin's projects, including BiaBox and their heartwarming S'port for Grief. Both projects getting to the heart of their communities and improving lives in different ways, targeting those that really need a hand.
We could go on forever about the NextGen Takeover, but now, we look to the future. We are extremely excited to bring TU Dublin to this year's Enactus World Cup in Brazil. We look forward to seeing all our Ideas4Impact teams and how their early-stage projects start creating impact within their communities. Moreover, we are incredibly thankful to all our network who were with us these two days to support our mission to shape the next generation of responsible leaders.
