06 Mar Connecting Young Entrepreneurs with Digitalization and Social Entrepreneurship
On the 16th of February 2023 the team of FUNDECYT-PCTEX attended Foro Emprende, a summit organized by the regional government of Extremadura that serves as a hub for all the entrepreneurial activity of the region.
By participating in this event, the RAISE Youth team was able to showcase two of the project activities that are being implemented in the region: the RAISE Youth Digital Toolbox and the new edition of the CREA RAISE Youth programme. As covered in a previous article, the RAISE Youth Digital Toolbox is a web app with a wide range of different online tools to be used in things like social media, productivity, knowledge management, marketing, sustainability and web designing, among others, and several so-called “training pills” that give valuable insight on various topics that the users may find useful.
On the other hand, the CREA RAISE Youth programme is a reedition on the very same activity implemented in Extremadura during 2022. In this new edition, FUNDECYT-PCTEX has teamed up with external experts to amp up the training materials offered to the participants, as well as preparing different communication and dissemination strategies to potential users all across the region. By creating an extensive network of contacts and by combining different stakeholders in the territories, as well as training centers, universities and the private sector, it is expected that this activity will, at least, reach a significant number of rural NEETs all across Extremadura and will offer them the opportunity to participate in an online MOOC training that will be combined with in-situ visits to key companies in the region. Furthermore, as an effort to collaborate and create networks and contacts with all the NEETs participating in the RAISE Youth project, FUNDECYT-PCTEX together with the leaders of the project and our partner in Croatia, GTF-Initiative for Sustainable Growth (GTF-ISG), is working on offering to some of the NEETs participating in this second edition the opportunity to travel to the RAISE Youth Demo Center in the city of Gospić by early autumn to meet akin people from different countries in Europe and share their ideas and initiatives.
The reception of these two activities, so far, has been very positive according to the impression and different conversation held with some of the participants to the Foro Emprende. With this in mind, the team of the RAISE Youth project in Extremadura will keep on working to implement and bring to their full potential both the RAISE Youth Digital Toolbox and the CREA RAISE Youth programme to offer young NEETs in the rural areas of Extremadura the opportunity to improve their livelihoods and see how their own business ideas come to fruition in their own territories.