From Participatory Science to Impact Finance – The Visionary Journey of Thomas Egli

An Entrepreneur of the Common Good

For over thirty years, Thomas Egli has been forging a unique and pioneering path at the crossroads of science, education, social innovation, and impact finance. His journey began in 1992, when, still a student, he perceived the limits of traditional science education. Too academic, too abstract, too disconnected from real-world issues. He then formulated a simple but powerful intuition: what if citizens became co-actors in scientific research, by directly participating in the production of useful knowledge?

1992–2020: Making Participatory Science Viable and Profitable

From this intuition was born what would become an international movement of applied participatory science, driven by an organization he founded: the NGO Objectif Sciences International (OSI). OSI structures scientific education programs through research, where children, youth, and adults contribute to projects in environmental research, astronomy, climate, archaeology, or biodiversity. These programs rely on immersive field stays, co-designed with researchers, local communities, and institutional partners.

But Thomas Egli’s true achievement lies in his ability to reconcile educational impact with economic viability. In other words: making a common good-oriented activity profitable. To achieve this, he developed an original economic architecture based on:

• diversifying revenue models (citizen funding, sponsorship, public contributions, educational services),

• a cooperative structure for projects (where beneficiaries are also contributors),

• and international modularity, allowing each OSI branch to adapt its programs to its local context.

In less than two decades, OSI became the world’s leading NGO in participatory science with an autonomous economic model, present in more than 25 countries, with consultative status at the UN, and a community of thousands of participants, experts, educators, and funders. It inspired a new generation of projects combining open research, citizen empowerment, and applied collective intelligence.

A Rare Cross-Disciplinary Expertise

To achieve such results, Thomas Egli had to mobilize an exceptional range of skills, often siloed in traditional career paths:

• Long-term strategic vision (network structuring, evolving governance, cycles of open innovation);

• Mastery of hybrid business models (non-profit, entrepreneurial, cooperative);

• Pedagogical design and capacity for large-scale training;

• Building multi-stakeholder partnerships, involving local authorities, companies, researchers, citizens, and donors;

• Political and diplomatic skills, with engagements in international institutions (UNESCO, UN, intergovernmental forums);

• Humanistic leadership, able to inspire an international community around a shared goal: restoring knowledge in service of life.

2020: Scaling Up, Shifting Domains

After deciding to step down from the presidency of Objectif Sciences International in 2018, once the NGO had become autonomous, Thomas Egli was quickly approached by stakeholders from all sectors. Foundations, family offices, impact incubators, top schools, leaders of associations or mission-driven companies came to him with the same question:
“How do you make an impact project economically viable?”

This led to the idea of a dedicated structure to mutualize this know-how, serving all domains — education, health, energy, agriculture, urban planning, culture, climate — with a clear objective:
to move impact projects from prototype to sustainable and scalable models.

Toward the Geneva Foundation for the Future: Aligning Projects and Capital

This grassroots dynamic soon met a broader expectation: that of the financial community, in search of profound transformation.
Philanthropists, impact investors, public funders, sovereign funds, private banks, blended finance platforms — all express the same fundamental need to better align their resources with projects that truly drive societal and ecological transformation.

But for this to happen, a common language is needed, shared frameworks for analysis, and above all, reliable and accessible methodological tools.

This is how the Geneva Foundation for the Future came into being. Launched in 2024 after three years of preparatory work, this collective initiative, catalyzed by Thomas Egli, aims to connect the siloed worlds of finance, philanthropy, and project leaders. The foundation then developed the AGILE tool, a five-pillar analysis framework (Alignment, Governance, Intention, Leadership, Efficiency), designed to assess, monitor, support, and guide impact projects toward viable and transformative models.

When Industry Itself Calls for Impact

A final notable turning point: major industrial players, initially engaged in CSR (corporate social responsibility) or green finance efforts, are now turning to the Foundation. Aware of the limits of purely compensatory or marketing-driven approaches, they seek to convert their infrastructures and value chains toward real impact.

These demands bring new challenges: supporting scale-up, transforming legacy models, integrating fairer and more sustainable value chains — all while maintaining economic profitability. But they confirm a founding intuition:
the 21st century will not lack money, it will lack economically viable and fundamentally useful projects.

Thomas Egli’s story is not that of one man alone. It is the story of a conviction turned method, a method turned ecosystem. It is also the story of a bridge between idealism and strategy, between grassroots and institutions, between finance and life.

By embodying this convergence, he opens a path that others can follow, amplify, and adapt — in all fields where meaning, rigor, and impact are called to meet.

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