Entrepreneurial Skills – The Drive Behind New Businesses Erasmus Project

Project Title

Entrepreneurial Skills – The Drive Behind New Businesses

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Pedagogy and didactics; Social entrepreneurship / social innovation; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education

Project Summary

The project “Entrepreneurial Skills – The Drive Behind New Businesses” taught students how to come up with ideas, develop them and turn those ideas into viable business plans directed at solving environmental, social or economic issues.

There were five partner schools in this project: Spain, Greece, Turkey, Romania and Sweden. At the start of the project, all schools taught entrepreneurship alternatively were actively looking to set up an entrepreneurship program. The LTT activities that took place included three workshops in the partner countries Turkey, Spain and Greece. In these workshops the participants practiced their entrepreneurial skills, such as generating ideas, communication, problem solving, presentation skills and collaboration. The participants were divided into small groups with one student from each partner school. The objective of the workshops was to come up with business plans helping to solve a local problem . The local problems students were to focus on solving were the concern of devastation of trees in Finike, the issue of homelessness in Barcelona and plastic waste in the Mediterranean outside Athens. The last workshop in Sweden was first postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and then finally done as a virtual activity in which the participants, in their respective countries, worked on ideas that would help people cope with the pandemic. The subject of this workshop was changed from air pollution in the city of Gothenburg asthe participants were unable to travel to Gothenburg to learn more of the problem. In all workshops students used specific methods and exercises taught by the participating teachers aimed at helping students brainstorm, develop ideas and think outside the box. The last day of the workshop the students presented their business plans, i.e. solutions to the local problem, to the participants, students and staff of the local schools and local entrepreneurs and businessmen. In the digital workshop the business ideas were presented online in a digital meeting.

The workshops were either taught by the local teachers or co-taught by local and visiting teachers from the partner countries, depending on how experienced the teachers were at teaching entrepreneurship. The methods used were written down in a methodological tool kit.

In between workshops students cooperated in four assignments aimed at developing the entrepreneurial skills of the participants. This was done in the students’ local courses and shared over the internet on a Twinspace site. The assignments were researching the specifics of starting a business in the partner countries, analyzing the EU labor market, writing a business plan and making a SWOT analysis of social entrepreneurship.

The project had the following objectives:
1. That students improve their entrepreneurial competences: collaboration skills, ethical and sustainable thinking, self-awareness, motivation, perseverance, financial and economic literacy, planning and management, as well as the ability to spot opportunities, value ideas, mobilize resources, mobilize others, take the initiative, cope with uncertainty and learn through experience.
2. That teachers practice and learn new methods of how to teach students improve these entrepreneurial competences, and apply these methods to other subjects.
3. That students gain good knowledge of the European labor market and what it is like to run a company in the partner countries.
4. That students come up with viable ideas that potentially can be developed into real businesses.
5. That students learn to always consider sustainability when brainstorming new ideas.

The result of the project will continue to benefit both the partner schools and the students in the future. For the partner schools the methodological tool kit will continue to be used and taught in their respective schools. The participating students got to study close at hand how to write a business plan in another country and they practiced their entrepreneurial skills. They were also be able to get a broader European perspective on how to start a business, running a company and the labor market.

The project focused on one of the eight key competences for life-long learning, entrepreneurship. It also touched upon three more: multilingual competence, digital competence, and personal, social and learning to learn competence. The workshops were centered on practicing entrepreneurship – how to act upon opportunities and ideas and transform them into values for others. In order to do so the students needed to communicate actively with each other and use their multilingual competences. They also needed to work with others in a constructive way, remain resilient, cope with uncertainty and complexity, which is part of the personal, social and learning to learn competence. A fourth competence was also used, digital competence, as students practiced collaboration, creativity and used computers and different software to do so.

Project Website

http://edbnb.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 97152 Eur

Project Coordinator

NTI Kronhus & Country: SE

Project Partners

• 19th Lykeion of Athens
• Colegiul National Anastasescu
• Finike Cumhuriyet Mesleki ve Teknik Anadolu Lisesi
• CONGREGACION INSTITUCION JAVERIANA-SEDE GENERALICIA