The Hilti Foundation focuses on sustainable social change in its projects by empowering people around the world to lead independent and self-determined lives. By adding value to society, the Hilti Foundation also contributes significantly to the Hilti Group's strategy.

Economic Empowerment is about enabling people in need to become economically independent so they can lead self-determined lives. Despite economic growth in Eastern Africa, poverty rates remain very high, with rural populations and the younger generation in major cities particularly affected. Our work in this focus area is based on two initiatives: enterprise development and vocational training.

The objective in our focus area, Music for Social Change, is to empower young people through music to make conscious choices for life. We are concentrating on three initiatives: supporting grassroot programs, building bridges between music programs and the established music world, and the Academy for Impact through Music (AIM).

The Affordable Housing & Technology focus area is about changing the way low-income families build and live. Here, our work is based on three initiatives: spreading bamboo construction, creating an inclusive housing industry, and building coalitions of impact.

In times of crises, rapid and stable support is of the utmost importance. Our long-standing partner organizations, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, @fire - Internationaler Katastrophenschutz, and Ärzte ohne Grenzen Schweiz / Médecins Sans Frontières Suisse, have been physically on the ground since day one.

A new scholarship program aims to attract more MBA program applicants with a background in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and the ambition to pursue a leadership role in STEM professions.

We are extremely proud to announce that the MicroBuild Fund has received the World Habitat Award by UN-Habitat. The MicroBuild Fund of Habitat for Humanity International focuses on helping low-income families access housing through microfinance institutions and has helped over one million people worldwide.

Regular collaboration with international musicians and orchestras is a key element of the Iberacademy curriculum. At the end of January, the Iberacademy Orchestra Medellín embarked on its next concert tour to Europe. The young musicians will perform at the first music festival of the year, the renowned "Mozartwoche Salzburg”, before traveling on to Feldkirch.

A new "ISR Campus" is set to be completed by 2023, just a short distance from the current school building of the International School Rheintal (ISR) in Buchs. The innovative new campus will accommodate up to 300 children and adolescents aged 3 to 19 who are pursuing an International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma.

Block your calendars already now on Tuesday, January 24, 2023, at 2:00 p.m. (GMT+1). Join us for a fascinating live-stream session and listen to Maritime Archaeologist Franck Goddio. He will update us on the latest developments of the ongoing excavations of Thonis-Heracleion in Egypt.

2022 has been another challenging year, and recent world events have caused a major setback in the effort to fight poverty. Therefore, an even stronger commitment by the Hilti Foundation is needed. Nevertheless, 2022 has also been a year of good progress: We stayed on track with our projects and were able to launch important new initiatives.

As part of Hilti’s corporate volunteering program Engaged Beyond Business, our colleagues are involved in social and environmental initiatives that go beyond their daily work. Numerous local projects are running all over the world, led by the respective Hilti organization. In addition, the Hilti Foundation offers some international initiatives.

Located on Vaduzer Landstrasse, the pepperMINT Experimentation Lab is a place where children learn to engage with STEM subjects—Mathematics, Informatics, Natural Sciences, and Technology—through playful exploration.

After one year of intense preparations, the Hilti Foundation proudly announces its latest initiative in East Africa: For the first time, 120 young people will spend the next two years as an employed apprentice of one of 24 renown Kenyan companies and student of a specialized school, to be educated as a certified plumber or electrician. This dual training model is based on more than 100 years of experience in Switzerland and Central Europe.

Affordable Housing & Technology is one of the Hilti Foundation's focus areas. That involves more than the well-known Cement Bamboo Frame Technology, which provides safe and sustainable homes for families in need. The Foundation also supports the development and implementation of other solutions to improve the way families live and build.

In 2023, the Hilti Family Foundation Liechtenstein and the Association of Forest Owners "Wald St. Gallen & Liechtenstein" will present the "Waldpreis" for the first time.

This was a dream coming true for the talented young musicians of the Sinfonía por el Perú Youth Orchestra when they crossed the ocean this late summer: Performing together with world-renowned tenor and founder of Sinfonía por el Perú, Juan Diego Flórez, at three of the most prestigious and important classical music venues.

To promote and expand affordable housing markets, Habitat for Humanity’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter launched ShelterTech, the world’s leading platform for affordable housing innovation, which targets pioneering shelter entrepreneurs. The Hilti Foundation’s support for ShelterTech and the Terwilliger Center’s Shelter Venture Labs puts entrepreneurs at the center of a highly connected ecosystem of collaborative partners.

In August 2022, the Academy for Impact through Music (AIM) gathered 40 students, the so called “Firebirds” for the immersive part of their Fellowship journey. Although the second cohort, this residency was the first of its kind, notably including 40 Firebird Young Leaders aged 13-17. This was no normal ‘orchestral music camp’ - teachers from music for social change programs came from Brazil, the Canary Islands, Colombia, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Uganda and the USA, along with young musicians, music program leaders, expert faculty and staff in Lisbon for over 3 weeks to experiment with transformational teaching and learning approaches.

It is almost a tradition when musicians from the Iberacademy Medellín and their young colleagues from the Stella Privathochschule Feldkirch form the "Pforte Kammerochester Plus" every spring and fall. As part of the chamber music program "Musik in der Pforte", the orchestra will be dedicated to contemporary music as well as the compositions of the great masters, in October 2022 Mozart and Beethoven. In the best chamber music tradition, the ensemble is led by the concertmaster.