Welcome To
Startup Eu Academy
Main objective of the project: Innovation
Project Title: Startup EU Academy
Project Start Date (dd-mm-yyyy): 01-06-2019
Project Total Duration: 30 months
Project End Date (dd-mm-yyyy): 30-11-2021
National Agency of the Applicant Organisation: CZ01 Dům zahraniční spolupráce (DZS) Centre for International Cooperation in Education
Applicant Organisation: KURO Hradec Kralove z. s. – Czech Republic
Significant effort have been deploys in recent years to promote youth entrepreneurship at national level. Numerous countries now count on policies that support youth entrepreneurship, mainly through education and skills development in the schooling system, and comprehensive packages offering multiple services such as training, financial support, bushiness advisory services, mentoring and coaching. ” Startup EU Academy” project looks at policies and programmes that have proven to help young entrepreneurs move up the performance ladder.
Unemployed young people around Europe find it difficult to start a new job and many of them even give up at the very beginning. Youth entrepreneurship has been identified as a necessary for reducing unemployment and fundamental for economic progress by the European Commission. According to Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan of EU Commission, we need more entrepreneurs to reignite Europe’s entrepreneurial potential and create new jobs
(http://ec.europa.eu/growth/smes/promoting-entrepreneurship/action-plan/index_en.htm).
Unfortunately, young people do not have the knowledge and skills necessary to start their own business. Even if they have the skill and knowledge, entrepreneurship is not enough on its own, it is necessary to be combined with innovation which the company’s competitiveness strongly depends upon [Porter and Stern, (2001), p.28]. In order to achieve a successful entrepreneurship, innovation is necessary, once innovation is created, the opening of a new market is crucial. Thus, the project incorporates three main pillars such as entrepreneurship, innovation and e-commerce and addresses the specific objectives of youth field in terms of improving the level of key competences and skills of young people and enhancing the capacity of youth workers and organisations. The project aims to contribute the development of e-commerce around Europe via training youngsters on entrepreneurship and innovation methodologies at EU level with specific objectives of raising new entrepreneurs who know innovation methods at EU level as volunteers of fostering the sustainability of entrepreneurship and e-commerce at EU level, developing their skills and capacity, fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship around Europe, creating a platform where entrepreneurs can flourish, cooperate and grow together. The project targets mainly youngsters between 20 and 30, youth workers and NGO members. Five organisations from public bodies to NGOs from 5 countries with different expertise and experience about entrepreneurship, innovation and e-commerce cooperate within the context of the project. 150 individuals from the partner institutions will form our target group and approximately 2500 individuals are expected to take indirectly benefit from the project. Four intellectual outputs which will be created at the end of the project are as follows;
1- Country reports which state the current situation about entrepreneurship, innovation and e-commerce in partner countries,
2- An algorithmic and interactive guide which will help those who want to start their own business,
3- Web platform at EU level which will be in five languages of partner countries, as well as on English.
4- E-learning consists of animated training materials about entrepreneurship, innovation and e-commerce.
About 10 youngsters from each partner country will participate in trainings and study visits experience in three different countries and will have had the opportunity to observe other countries and compare them with their own reality. At the end of the learning/teaching activities totally 30 youngsters will have gained the knowledge on mentorship/innovation, entrepreneurship and ecommerce through structured short term face to face trainings programmed according to the modern education approach. Then, they will hold seminars and share their experiences regarding the project theme. The youngsters who will have the trainings on mentorship/innovation, entrepreneurship and ecommerce will be active on creating the content of E-guide, country reports and E-learning.
As major output of the project – web portal in which the informing documents could be downloaded freely. About 18 youth workers will be responsible for supervision of the activity indirectly and the youth workers will attend the international meetings for monitoring and managing all the project activities. They are expected to provide guidance and assistance to the youngsters during their trainings and seminars and setting up their business.
Last, but not least, project outputs must be better targeted in order to cover disadvantaged and under- represented groups; equip young entrepreneurs with more practical skills; develop tailored training online through web-based platforms. They should partner with diverse actors, including development agencies, NGOs, communities and local bushiness organisations.
