EKO is happy to announce that one more amazing youth exchange has been completed successfully. The project “Social Crowdfunding for New Entrepreneurs” united 30 young participants from Lithuania, Turkey, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Romania. It was organized by the Lithuanian organization Innovative Projects and took place in Kaunas (Lithuania) from 16 to 24 March 2024. 

Aims & Objectives of the project 

The aim of the youth exchange “Social Crowdfunding for New Entrepreneurs” was to address youth unemployment in Europe by promoting entrepreneurship through social crowdfunding. The main target was the young people in countries with high unemployment rates, offering them the opportunity to fund their business ideas. The project focused on creating a diverse group of young entrepreneurs, enhancing their business concepts, presenting ideas to investors, and familiarizing them with European crowdfunding platforms. It aligned with European Youth Goals, emphasizing inclusion, gender equality, and quality employment. Activities included educational visits, workshops, and digital skill development, aiming to improve participants’ entrepreneurial, mathematical, and digital competencies. Additionally, This project addressed the challenges facing young Europeans and equipped them with the knowledge, skills, and financial insights required to launch their ventures through social crowdfunding. It was designed to foster a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation, thus creating new employment opportunities and contributing to the economic resilience of the continent.

More specifically the objectives were:

• Reducing youth unemployment in Europe by fostering entrepreneurship.
• Enhancing knowledge and skills related to social crowdfunding.
• Promoting digital literacy and entrepreneurial competencies among young people.
• Supporting the development of innovative and sustainable business ideas.
• Strengthening European identity and cooperation among youth from different countries.
• Encouraging gender equality and inclusivity in business ventures.

Workshops & Activities of the project 

Through this project, participants had the opportunity to get better in some key competencies such as multilingual competence, personal, social and learning to learn competence. During  the week, they worked with a non-formal methodology on topics about entrepreneurship, financial strategies for startups, digitalization, and quality employment opportunities. The participants had the opportunity to develop their own business ideas, to overcome possible real life business challenges, like social problems, financial resources, advertisement, inclusivity etc. In order to better understand the topic, the future entrepreneurs visited some local businesses and one of the most successful companies in digital management in Kaounas. Last but not least, they had the chance to go around the town, learn about its history, visit the town hall and learn about the struggles each municipality faces and how important are the European projects for the city’s development. So, over all participants returned to their countries with new knowledge, motivation and new business ideas.

An amazing opportunity and a great experience for EKO’s team

Christos, Angelos, Georgia, Vagia, and Athanasios were the members of this amazing Greek team whom we really wanna thank for all their contribution and collaboration throughout the project!

As EKO, we are very grateful for that amazing opportunity given to the Greek team and we thank our partner Innovative Projects and the members of the hosting organization for all their hard work and for creating such an impactful project!

Thank you – Ευχαριστούμε – Ačiū