Every year, the European Network of Innovation for Inclusion organizes an important Good Practices Competition, aiming at awarding organizations taking part in the implementation of European projects. Every year, the network announces 2 different categories. These categories include projects that focus on entrepreneurship, innovation and social inclusion of vulnerable groups.
This year the categories were:
- Socio-Labour Inclusion
- Inclusive Entrepreneurship
Each category has one winner and two finalists. The Institute of Entrepreneurship Development (IED) as part of the Network was the winner of the second category ‘’Inclusive Entrepreneurship’’. The winning project was the ‘’Open Mind’’ project.
Some information on the Project
The Open Mind project was a pilot experience of a gamified open on-line course in social entrepreneurship targeted at women and students from non-business fields of study.
The aim of the project was to improve their access to entrepreneurship training to acquire entrepreneurial skills and attitude. In addition, it also addressed gender gaps in the labor market by promoting gender-balanced career possibilities in the social entrepreneurship field.
After the completion of the competition, a study visit was organized and the two finalists organizations of the category, CBE Sub Luberton – Pertuis from France and Signa from Spain visited the offices of the winning organization, IED, in Larisa, Greece.
The Study Visit on Innovation for Inclusion
On September 10th and 11th, IED had the pleasure to welcome a total of seven members from these organizations and organized a two-day study visit.
One the first day the visitors had the opportunity to present their projects as well as watch the presentation for the ‘’Open Mind’’ project, by IED. After the presentations, the participants, as well as the hosts, engaged in an open discussion sharing thoughts and ideas about the projects.
The second day of the study visit started with a discussion concerning challenges, difficulties, and needs in the selected theme ‘’Inclusive Entrepreneurship’’. With that discussion in mind, the participants and the host organization analyzed the open calls that can finance activities to take on these challenges, overcome the difficulties and cover the needs of ‘’Inclusive Entrepreneurship’’.
Two of the most important activities of the day were:
- The work on project ideas based on concept notes that were shared before the meeting by the participant organizations
- The designing of proposals and targeting of future calls
The study visit was very successful. The participants had the opportunity to compare notes and gain knowledge on Social inclusion Good Practices, through Entrepreneurship.
