Training New Mentors for Young Tech Entrepreneurs Erasmus Project

Project Title

Training New Mentors for Young Tech Entrepreneurs

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 youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

The project was implemented in the context of the European-wide development of the innovative entrepreneurship ecosystem. Partners include 5 technoparks (mersin technopark, tartu, madan, espaitec, step c) and an entrepreneurship school (IStec brussels)
All partners carry out studies to develop the entrepreneurship ecosystem on a national and transnational scale. Entrepreneurs’ motivations for the development of mentoring, which is one of the greatest needs in overcoming the difficulties in realizing their ideas, ensured the establishment of this partnership and the emergence and successful execution of the project.

The project generally aims to train qualified mentors for young technology entrepreneurs. Achieving this general goal has been possible with the realization of 3 chained goals. These:

1. Training experienced business people who have successfully completed their entrepreneurship processes on how to mentor young technology entrepreneurs and bringing new mentors to the ecosystem
2. Providing mentoring activities by matching young technology entrepreneurs with mentors
3. Raising awareness about mentoring

The project has 3 main groups of participants
Trainer mentors: This group consists of experienced mentors and provided training to mentor candidates.
Mentor Candidates: It consists of experienced business people who have been in the industry for at least 5 years, with or without mentoring experience, and who are motivated to mentor.

Young Tech Entrepreneurs (Start-Ups): The participants in this group are young entrepreneurs who have just started their business life and need mentor support in various fields (hard or softskills).

The definition of young here refers to the entrepreneur’s experience in realizing the business idea, not his age.

In addition to these main participant profiles, different institutions that are actors of the entrepreneurship ecosystem have been included in the project activities. These:
universities
NGOs
Institutions like Chambers.

The project team implemented the activities determined in the proposal in order to achieve the objectives determined in the proposal period, by making improvements when necessary in response to the changes that took place during the project.
Accordingly, the general activities of the project are as follows:

Conducting needs analysis and reporting to identify the needs of mentors and entrepreneurs regarding the mentoring processes
Conducting a comparative study of mentoring processes across Europe
Organizing national Workshops in every country
Preparation of Curriculum for Mentor Training Training
Realization of the Training Program
Preparation of project reports
Conducting transnational project meetings and post-COVID online project meetings
Holding the Dissemination Conference
Preparation of the e-Platform
Making mentor-mentee pairings
With the project, trainer mentors, mentor candidates and start-ups from all partner countries were reached, and the common problems and needs of mentors and mentees were determined. Thanks to the project, the goal of raising awareness about mentoring was achieved. And one of the ultimate goals of the project, raising new mentors, was achieved after the training, and then mentor-mentee matching was ensured, enabling start-ups to reach the support they needed in areas such as realizing their initiatives and commercializing their products, sales and marketing.

Project Website

http://www.mentech.eu.com

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 131559,2 Eur

Project Coordinator

MERSIN TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT ZONE & Country: TR

Project Partners

• Ecole de commerce Bogaerts
• MERSIN UNIVERSITESI
• COMMUNAUTE D’AGLOMERATION DE SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS
• Republic Of Turkey Ministry Of Industry and Technology-General Directorate of Research and Development Incentives
• ETAIRIA DIACHIRISIS KAI ANAPTIXIS EPISTIMONIKOU KAI TECHNOLOGIKOU PARKOU KRITIS AE
• AKDENIZ IHRACATCI BIRLIKLERI GENEL SEKRETERLIGI
• ASSOCIACAO PARQUE DE CIENCIA E TECNOLOGIA DE ALMADA/SETUBAL-MADAN PARQUE