From Mentoring to the Workplace: YouthLivingLabs Teams Turn Ideas into Internship Opportunities
For young people entering or re-entering the labour market, developing skills is only part of the journey. Being able to apply those skills to a real challenge, work effectively within a team, communicate an idea and present it to professionals can make the difference between training and a genuine employment opportunity.
Over the past months, the YouthLivingLabs project has brought all these elements together through an intensive mentoring and experimentation process designed to prepare young participants for real interaction with the business world.
YouthLivingLabs is a 24-month Erasmus+ project that brings together organisations from Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Jordan and Egypt. Its wider objective is to develop and test a replicable, market-driven Youth Living Lab model that supports young people, particularly NEETs, in developing open innovation and design thinking skills while connecting them directly with companies and start-ups. A key feature of the model is that young people do not work only on theoretical exercises: they are invited to address real challenges identified by businesses, with the strongest solutions creating pathways towards internship opportunities.
Learning by Solving Real Business Challenges
The mentoring phase represented one of the most practical stages of the YouthLivingLabs journey.
Before reaching this point, participants had already strengthened a range of digital and innovation competences. Τhe training process addressed areas such as the use of digital tools for innovation, problem-solving and adaptability, collaboration in digital environments and job-ready digital skills. Participants were also connected with host organisations, with mentors supporting their learning and professional development.
The next challenge was to put these competences into practice.
Working in teams, participants were matched with business challenges and supported by mentors in transforming an initial idea into a structured and feasible solution. This reflects one of the central principles behind the Youth Living Lab methodology: young people develop employability skills not only by learning about innovation, but by experiencing an innovation process themselves.
A Mentoring Journey Based on Design Thinking
The YouthLivingLabs mentoring programme guided participants through four key stages: Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver. Teams explored real business challenges, defined the core problem, developed innovative solutions and refined their ideas through prototyping and feedback.
Throughout the process, mentors supported participants in strengthening teamwork, problem-solving and innovation skills while preparing them to present their solutions to the companies involved.
Preparing for the Pitch
The mentoring process culminated in the YouthLivingLabs pitching event, where teams presented their solutions directly to the companies behind the challenges.
Participants had the opportunity to demonstrate their progress, explain the value of their ideas and receive direct feedback from the business sector. The event created an important bridge between young talent and companies, bringing the YouthLivingLabs approach into practice.
Three Teams Take the Next Step
Following the pitching process, three teams — two from Jordan and one from Spain — were selected for internship opportunities.
The internships give participants the chance to turn their newly developed skills into real workplace experience, while demonstrating the value of combining mentoring, open innovation, non-formal learning and business engagement to support young people’s transition into the labour market.
Turning the Experience into a Replicable Youth Living Lab Model
The lessons emerging from the mentoring, business challenges and pitching activities will have a life beyond the individual teams involved.
In July 2026, the YouthLivingLabs partners met in Cairo, Egypt, for a two-day co-creation workshop. Partners from Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Jordan and Egypt worked together to turn the experience gained throughout project implementation into the first draft of the official YouthLivingLabs Guidelines.
One of the five key pillars identified for a successful Youth Living Lab is specifically “Mentoring & Non-Formal Education Facilitation”, alongside lab infrastructure, youth recruitment and selection, business challenge creation, and sustainability and long-term impact.
This is an important next step. The purpose of YouthLivingLabs is not only to generate opportunities for the current group of participants, but also to build a model that other youth organisations can reproduce in their own communities.
The experience of the past months shows what this model can look like in practice: young people learning new skills, businesses bringing forward real challenges, mentors guiding teams through an innovation process, and promising ideas opening doors to professional experience.
For the three teams from Jordan, Egypt and Spain, that door has already opened.
For YouthLivingLabs, their journey is also evidence of what can happen when youth empowerment is connected directly to real needs and real opportunities in the labour market.
🔗 To stay informed about project updates and to be notified when the open call launches, visit: youthlivinglabs.eu.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
