international STart-up ExPerience Erasmus Project

Project Title

international STart-up ExPerience

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education

Project Summary

The iSTEP-project (international STartup ExPerience) is set in the context of recent megatrends which have changed the way we live and work, namely in a world which makes increasing use of digitalization. This shows in our everyday lives with our use of mobile digital technology which we use in our free time to communicate, organize, play etc. A similar trend can be seen in the economy as well: for a long time, production has been more and more digitalized, and also other sectors such as services. Digitalization also opens up new opportunities for transnational business processes especially for innovative new businesses, as investment costs have also dropped significantly. This may be particularly profitable in the European Union’s Common Market which encourages transnational business processes.

On this background, the students involved in the project learn about setting up a startup company, organizing the necessary works, defining and choosing appropriate staff and creating advertising media. While doing so, they learn about the advantages of the EU’s Common Market which enables them to distribute the company’s departments and recruit staff everywhere in Europe, where they find the best pre-conditions. In the course of their activities, they learn about the different social, cultural and economic conditions in the four partner countries which will affect their decisions regarding their business activities. Finally, the documents they produce in the course of the project such as a company profile will later serve as a valuable teaching resources for any teacher dealing with the topic in their lesson.

The project addresses 20-25 students in each partner school in Germany, Italy, Romania and Turkey, aged 15 or above who focus on Business Studies and Economics and are interested in entrepreneurship. In the process of the course, the expertise of startup entrepreneurs, managers, labour market and advertising experts is used to help the students apply realistic procedures. Furthermore, fellow students from their schools have the opportunity to examine information and media about the invented product and assess it.

Specifically, the involved students will do the project-related work in four processes: they will…
1. simulate founding a startup company which is going to develop an innovative product or service which makes use of digitalization opportunities.
2. examine possibilities in their home countries about where to manufacture the product, where to have their Research&Development department etc. which involves examining each national labour market and infra-structures in order to make informed and realistic decisions.
3. take care of recruiting staff for the various departments by simulating common application processes such as job interviews and assessment centers.
4. produce advertising video clips suitable for use in each of the four countries and present them in a simulated trade fair stand to the public.

Each process involves preparatory activities and exchanges between the students from the different countries via the Internet. The processes are each concluded by a personal meeting of delegations from each school at one of the partner schools.

In the course of the project, the students gain valuable intercultural experiences in each interaction with their peers from the partner schools. In particular, they have many occasions to discuss important business-related decisions and make democratic decisions, taking advice from their teachers into account. Frequently, they prepare presentation materials like posters or Power Point presentations which they present to various audiences. External experts present a lot of valuable first-hand knowledge to them regarding their business processes which they have to understand and adopt. They roleplay as recruitment officers or job applicants. The documentation requires them to create numerous written texts and visual and audiovisual media. Throughout the project, they use English as lingua franca in written and oral communication which improves their Foreign Language Skills.

The project works result in the production of several documents describing the company, its mission statement, its structure and the product it markets. Other documents cover information about the partner countries’ infra-structures and labour markets, and common application procedures there. Also, video clips and other visual media are produced. Finally, the project execution process is documented in written form. All applicable results are published on the Erasmus+ Results Platform and on the project website.

The project helps the involved students to gain a deep understanding of how a modern business works under the conditions set out in the European Internal Market. For the schools, the project becomes an important element of their internationalization strategies, helps to create understanding and motivation among staff to support such activities.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 94893 Eur

Project Coordinator

Berufskolleg Kaufmannsschule der Stadt Krefeld & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Istituto d’Istruzione Superiore G.D. Romagnosi
• Ozel Maltepe Cevizli Ugur Anadolu Lisesi
• Colegiul National “Nicolae Balcescu”