
Weekend Residency Options
Deepen your learning in Costa Rica
The Impact Innovation Course offers two optional weekend residencies designed to complement the intensive weeklong program. Each residency grounds the course themes in Costa Rican culture, ecology, and community, offering space for integration, connection, and restoration. Choose one, both, or neither based on your learning goals and schedule.
Residency A
Community Immersion
August 1-2, 2026
Who it's for
Participants (from either cohort) who want to connect with Costa Rica's regenerative community and experience the course themes in action.
What you'll do
• Exchange with a local impact organization working on social or environmental transformation in Costa Rica
• Explore a biodiverse natural setting through guided immersion
• Practice embodied leadership through facilitated workshops on presence, reflection, and conscious action
• Connect across cohorts - bridge between Cohort A and B participants
Community Immersion Lead Designer & Facilitator

Natalie Ortiz Villalobos
Regenerative Designer and Embodied Learning Facilitator
Natalie is a Costa Rican multidisciplinary designer and facilitator working at the intersection of regenerative design, systems change, and place-based learning. With over 14 years of experience as a design practitioner, she has led projects in Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia, partnering with communities and institutions on initiatives ranging from climate policy and women’s health to circular fashion and rural livelihoods. She brings embodied and relational approaches to convening and learning, grounded in more than a decade of teaching yoga, meditation, and breathwork and more recently working as a doula. Natalie is passionate about cultivating reciprocal partnerships and designing experiences that honour the bio-cultural uniqueness of place and support life in all its forms.
Residency B
Course Integration
August 8-9, 2026
Who it's for
Participants (from either cohort) who want dedicated time to integrate course insights before returning home.
What you'll do
• Collective sense-making - connect course learnings to your specific projects and leadership context
• Nature-based reflection - guided writing and contemplative practices in Costa Rica's natural beauty
• Integration planning - create a clear action plan for applying frameworks in your daily work
• Restorative practices - guided yoga, meditation, and rest to recharge after intensive learning
• Connect across cohorts - bridge between Cohort A and B participants
Course Integration Lead Designer & Facilitator

Stephanie Arrowsmith
Impact Hub Co-founder & Board Member
Stephanie is a facilitator and experience designer who creates immersive gatherings, learning journeys, and programs to strengthen community, systems thinking, and social innovation across the Asia‑Pacific. She co‑founded Impact Hub Jakarta and has held regional leadership roles within the Impact Hub network, focusing on ecosystem building, strategic partnerships, and entrepreneur-support programming. With over a decade of experience in international development and innovation, Stephanie designs cross‑sector initiatives including regional conferences and donor-supported innovation programs. Her work emphasizes systems change, co‑design, inner development, and wellbeing, and spans projects such as community investment models, regenerative retreats, and collective‑intelligence initiatives. Born in Jakarta and raised in Perth, she operates internationally from bases in Southeast Asia.
Understanding the residency
The Weekend Residency is not required, but an offer by our Faculty Team that anchors a place based approach to connecting with the Costa Rican community in a more direct way, while also ensuring that integration of course content and conversations can be more deeply woven in through rich practice based reflections and experiences.
Timelines & Process
During your course application process you will have the ability to express your interest to join one or both of the Weekend Residency Programs. There are a limited number of places available and in the case of maximum registrations, a wait list will be made on a first come, first serve basis.
What is Included
The Weekend Residency package includes accommodation for Saturday evening, Saturday meals and Sunday morning breakfast and lunch, programming with local teams, faculty facilitation, materials and transport to and from the residency lodge from the closest stop near Campus.
Cost & Schedule
Each Weekend Residency is USD 580 each. Note, each weekend program will start on Saturday morning with a group depature from campus (07:30) and return on Sunday (1a6:00). Each residency will take place at a different location which is within a 2.5 hour drive from campus.
Eligibility
Only accepted and registered participants will be considered for joining one or both or the weekend residencies. These weekends are designed not as a stand-alone experience, yet an expanded offering that deepens the chance to engage with the land, community and self beyond the 5 intensive days.

(c) 2026. All Rights Reserved. Image Credits (c) La Negrita Photography and UPEACE Centre for Executive Education



