Stop Dreaming Start Doing Erasmus Project

Project Title

Stop Dreaming Start Doing

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 : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

“In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.” (David Ogilvy, co-founder of Ogilvy & Mather). Project ” Stop Dreaming Start Doing” originated from the idea to involve students from senior classes into the novel and exciting business world so as to broaden their understanding about the importance of entrepreneurship education, to introduce students to the essentials of successful business and, while engaging with proposed project activities, to take the entrepreneurial plunge which encourage students to assume responsibility and command in their future businesses.

Contemporary students will have to live and work in a completely different fast-changing world surrounded by sophisticated technologies and competitive environment of economics and politics. They will face many daunting challenges and the lack of experience makes it particularly difficult to see and seize business opportunities. As many schools do not offer in their academic paths parallel vocational courses or workshops to help students in making a choice for their future career, the proposed idea of this project was addressed to discover another field of studies in order to undertake new challenges with specific competences.

The partnership for the project between President Jonas Zemaitis Gymnasium from Raseiniai, Lithuania and HTBLVA-VILLACH in Villach, Austria was established after the Inter-School Competition dedicated to the theme “Online Shopping”, financed by the General Directorate of Health and Consumers of the European Commission when the winners of the competition from Lithuania and Austria, met in Brussels in 2014. Connecting links for future projects between teachers and schools were discussed and the initial topics and ideas for Erasmus + project were generated.

The project had foreseen the main aims and the objectives that were achieved during the activities:
• to develop and stimulate students’ natural and gained abilities, such as creativity, self-motivation, confidence, responsibility and determination;
• to develop competences in leadership, logical thinking, analyzing problems and finding solutions;
• to evaluate risks and to endeavour stated aims;
• to build up a productive collaboration among students and teachers in the field of high education;
• to promote cultural diversity and mutual understanding, improving students’ knowledge of history and cultural heritage of two countries.

The project activities for the participants were addressed to the following stages of the project:
THEORETICAL APPROACH
During the exchange visits the project participants improved their knowledge regarding development of personality traits. Training workshops for students, lectured by Šarūnas Dignaitis, Mindaugas Grajauskas (“Success School”, Lithuania), Yvan Laurent (AIG), were organized in which the participants developed and stimulated their natural and gained abilities such as creativity and lateral thinking, self-reliance, responsibility, critical thinking, problem-solving as well as the ability to objectively evaluate their competence and receptivity to innovative ideas. When in Lithuania and Austria, the students visited successful business enterprises and listened to business success stories. Having participated in the mentioned activities, the students improved their theoretical knowledge on the concept of entrepreneurship.
PRACTICAL APPROACH
In the course of the project the students had to plan and present their innovative ideas which could be fulfilled in reality in the future. As the students represented two countries having diverse social backgrounds as well as different experience in entrepreneurship and understanding of it, the participants had to master their entrepreneurial skills and abilities comparing them in the context of different social backgrounds. This fact made the main idea of the project more valuable and challenging. Working in bi-national teams and creating business plans students recognized and developed competence in leadership and endeavour at stated aims.

In the Year 2 of the project the participants brainstormed the entrepreneurial strategies gained during the first year of the project and suggested some ideas. After that, they fulfilled and transformed the ideas into reality. These activities were conducted in both countries separately and Lithuanian and Austrian students exchanged the implemented ideas through technologies and virtual mobility.

During the project lifetime both partner schools discovered new forms of teaching and learning to broaden students’ understanding about the importance of entrepreneurship education. The direct communication while being engaged in project activities was extra motivation for learning foreign languages. After the project lifetime partners improved the curricula offered to their students and strengthened the cooperation between educational institutions and project stakeholders.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 56220 Eur

Project Coordinator

President Jonas Zemaitis Gymnasium & Country: LT

Project Partners

• HTBLVA-Villach