Since 2008, the most severe economic crisis provoked in Europe over 25 million unemployed. Entrepreneurship may be a powerful driver of economic growth and job creation (“Towards a job-rich recovery”, 2012) and an instrument to improve employability levels (Annual Growth Survey 2013). Europe needs more entrepreneurs. In Europe, just over a third (37%) of workers prefer to be self-employed, whereas in the USA and China are more than 50%. The “European Incubator for Business Ideas” project is focused on people who have to face the main challenges of the today economic world such as unemployment, economic stability and growth, young people finding a job, seniors 50+, women, adults from disadvantaged area or with special need The project is aiming to enable students and adults to acquire and develop skills and competencies needed for their employability, to turn their business ideas into concrete actions and foster further learning, active citizenship and intercultural dialogue. Eight partners from six European countries, Edunet Organization and Teachers Training Center Dolj from Romania, Organisation for European Issues and Paphos Chamber of Commerce from Cyprus, Insignare from Portugal, CESO from Italy , Delado from Spain and Merseyside Expanding Horisons from UK bring relevant and complementary skills and human resources to create an innovative European Training Model, aiming to promote knowledge and skills of intercultural communication, working in MMHTs and patient safety and develop training content, learning and evaluation tools, which will be available on the project website. The partners will build a European Training Model based on the blended learning. The main output of the project is the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) based on co-learning and co-creation, containing learning and self-assessment activities and tools. After training 60 facilitators from the participating countries to support and guide the learners’ communities on the MOOC, 150 participants from the project’s partner countries and approximately 500 from across the world will be recruited to participate in the training on the created MOOC. The MOOC will mainly be provided in English with some translation and the students will be able to conduct their discussions, write their blogs and prepare their outputs in Romanian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese or Greek languages. The multilingual aspect of this MOOC will promote cooperation, communication, team working, and respect of diverse opinions, sensitivity and tolerance to people from different cultures, backgrounds and increase language competence, digital skills, flexibility and creativity. After finish the learning on the MOOC, 150 the participants from disadvantaged groups, unemployed, young people finding a job, seniors 50+, women, adults from disadvantaged area or with special need , will attend the five days in different workshops organized in partners’ countries, to apply acquired competence and skills in practice, working together with their colleagues from the host country to make a business plan. These workshops are real "incubators" of business idea. At the end of the training, participants will present their projects, their business idea and plan in front of colleagues and representatives of business, which will give them feedback. The participants will be motivated and encouraged to move on, from idea to action and initiate their own business. There are expected that many business ideas to be put into practice and to be created a network with fruitful results in cooperation and partnership in the future business of the participants. To promote the entrepreneurship education and the product of our project, six national seminars, will be organized in the partners’ countries attended by the managers, training providers and potential users, who will learn about the created resources and how to use the MOOC. All the Open Educational Resources (OER) produced will available on the project web site: a report on the training needs, Innovative teaching and learning Model, Educational recourses, a training guide for facilitators, and a good practice guide containing the processes, learning methodology and protocols used in our MOOC The course modules, learning outcomes, learning activities, assessment methods, reading lists, suggested content and on-line resources and links to outside resources etc. can be used freely for distance learning or some parts of them may be used as portions of a conventional or blended training. It is anticipated that our innovative Model and the MOOC will become popular across Europe and continue to be provided by the partner organizations and be used by other organizations after the end of the project and the created resources may be adapted and set up new wider-ranging MOOCs for education processes across Europe.
Since 2008, the most severe economic crisis provoked in Europe over 25 million unemployed. Entrepreneurship can be a powerful driver of economic growth and job creation (“Towards a job-rich recovery”, 2012) and an instrument to improve employability levels (Annual Growth Survey, 2013). Europe needs more entrepreneurs. In Europe, just over a third (37%) of workers prefer to be self-employed, whereas in the USA and China there are more than 50%. The “European Incubator for Business Ideas” project focused on people who have to face some of the key challenges of today's economic world, such as unemployment, economic stability and growth, young people finding a job, seniors of 50+, women, adults from disadvantaged areas or with special needs. The project aimed at enabling students and adults to acquire and develop skills and competencies needed for to improve their employability, to turn their business ideas into concrete actions and foster further learning, active citizenship and intercultural dialogue. Eight partners from six European countries, Edunet Organization and Teachers Training Centre Dolj from Romania, Organization for European Issues and Paphos Chamber of Commerce from Cyprus, Insignare from Portugal, CESO from Italy , Delado from Spain and Merseyside Expanding Horisons from UK, bring relevant and complementary skills and human resources to create an innovative European Training Model. The partners built a European Training Model based on the blended learning and developed training content, learning and evaluation tools, which are available on the project website www.eibiproject.eu.The main output of the project was a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) based on co-learning and co-creation, containing learning and self-assessment activities and tools. After training 72 facilitators from the participating countries to support and guide the learners’ communities on the MOOC, 384 participants from the project’s partner countries and approximately 500 from across the world participated in the training on the created MOOC. The MOOC was provided in English with translation of the instructions in Romanian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese or Greek languages, enabling students to participate in discussions, write their blogs and prepare their outputs. The multilingual aspect of the MOOC promoted cooperation, communication, teamwork, respect for diverse opinions, sensitivity and tolerance to people from different cultures, backgrounds and increased their language competence, digital skills, flexibility and creativity. After finishing the learning process on the MOOC, 122 participants attended the five days of face-to-face workshops organized in partners’ countries. Most of the participants were people from disadvantaged groups: unemployed, young people searching for a job, seniors 50+, women, adults from disadvantaged area or with special need. Working together with their colleagues, they applied in practice the knowledge and skills acquired and made business plans. These workshops were real "incubators" of business ideas. At the end of the training, the participants presented their projects, their business ideas and plans in front of their fellow colleagues and representatives of businesses and received feedback. In this way, the participants were motivated and encouraged to move on, from their idea to action and initiate their own business. It looked as many business ideas would be put into practice and a start of a strong network with fruitful results in cooperation and partnership in the future business of the participants. To promote the entrepreneurship education and the product of the project outputs, six national seminars, were organized in the partners’ countries, which were attended by 192 stakeholders, managers, training providers and potential users, who all learned about the Training Model, the resources created and how to use the MOOC. All the Open Educational Resources (OER) produced are available on the project web site www.eibiproject.eu: the Key functions analyses and the Key competences needed by a person when starting a business, the report on the Training needs’ assessment, the innovative Training Model, the Educational resources, the Training guide for facilitators, the MOOC content and Guide containing the processes, learning methodology and protocols used in the course as well as the Good practices and business ideas created during the workshops. Our MOOC is available at https://www.coursesites.com/s/_EIBI and is anticipated to continue be used in the future by people across Europe and beyond.