The Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan points out that to bring Europe back to growth and higher levels of employment we need to “bring about an entrepreneurial revolution in Europe”. It also states that investing in entrepreneurship education is one of the “highest return investments Europe can make”. Europe has to open up paths into entrepreneurship also for groups that are underrepresented among business actors, such as unemployed people or those living in geographical isolation or in less developed rural areas, who need to be empowered to be able to use their creative and innovative capacities. Nowadays entrepreneurship is underpinned by competence rather than ideas. Micro or family firms account for a 90% of all new businesses in Europe. Beside the sector-specific competency, there are skills deeply intertwined with starting new enterprises: essential skills for sharpening goals, skills needed to design, develop and refine a new or existing business model that helps the business achieve its growth potential. The skills for understanding the enterprise business model is vital especially for people living in geographically isolated regions and rural areas where the difficulties of creating a viable business are often more complex than for other entrepreneurs. They tend to have greater problems and also face barriers in accessing affordable training to up-skill and tailor-made education. To address this need the LiveCanvas project supports the realization of the EU priorities by contributing to key entrepreneurial competences development of entrepreneurs, start-ups and unemployed adults from rural, disadvantaged areas, in order to be able to deliver high quality products and services and to create and manage their business in a sustainable manner. The LiveCanvas outcomes will contribute to development of entrepreneurial skills of adults in rural, isolated areas and to enrich entrepreneurship training in the EU by: 1. Developing a training needed to tackle challenges, exploring Business Models of Rural Entrepreneurial practices in Europe and converting them into training tool while celebrating their innovation stories.2. Planning and testing a training program for innovative business and transversal skills for sustainable enterprises 3.Developing practical and hands-on training methods and materials to ensure rapid acquisition and long-term retention of core skills for developing new products and services, innovation practices and modern entrepreneurial techniques;4. Developing and support of an online learning space for open and innovative learning providing high quality learning environment for entrepreneurs, start-ups and unemployed adults in rural and isolated areas, and thus promoting and supporting equality and inclusion in the learning process; 5. Contributing to integration of innovative entrepreneurial skills training into European curricula. The core target groups of the project are:1. Entrepreneurs in rural areas who run family owned, micro, lifestyle businesses 2. Start-ups 3. Unemployed adults, located in remote rural areas who plan to run own business4. Adult education providers with high exploitation potential of the project outputs. The consortium consists of 6 European organisations with complementary expertise and highly experienced in the field of innovative adult training, entrepreneurship education, and web based educational tools production. 11 training staff from all partner organisations will be involved in piloting the innovative training materials during a short term training. 50 adult learners from 5 partner countries will participate in the local pilot sessions of the high quality LiveCanvas outcomes assuring evaluation of the online learning space on European level. Five multiplier events will be implemented with a min of 195 participants: • 4 dissemination workshops in BG, PT, RO and ES with the target group members, stakeholders and policy makers• in Sweden, a final international conference to promote European cooperation on entrepreneurial education of adult learners. For successful valorization of project results a Stakeholder Analysis along with a Dissemination strategy will be set to raise awareness of education and training opportunities within the Erasmus+, with special emphasis for up-skilling and entrepreneurial education of adults, and increase employability in less developed rural areas. We are strongly convinced that the new curriculum, along with the modern multimedia educational tool and materials developed and tested by the project will be core part of the training offer of organisations involved in the project. The LiveCanvas online learning space sustained for a min of 5 years will be largely promoted among adult education communities and beyond. A further potential benefit would be a continuing development and adapting of the educational tools for other groups in specific economic sectors which are not directly targeted by the project.
According to Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan of EC investing in entrepreneurship education should be a priority in EU, therefore there is an imminent need opening paths into entrepreneurship also for groups that are underrepresented among business actors, such as those living in geographical isolation or in less developed rural areas, who need to be empowered to be able to use their creative and innovative capacities. Beside the sector-specific competency, there are skills deeply intertwined with starting new enterprises: essential skills to setting goals, to develop and refine a new or existing business model that helps the business achieve its growth potential. The skills for understanding the enterprise business model is vital especially for people living in rural, geographically isolated areas where the difficulties of creating a viable business are more complex than for other entrepreneurs. They tend to have greater problems in accessing high quality and tailor-made trainings. The LiveCanvas project aimed to develop key entrepreneurial competences of entrepreneurs, start-ups and unemployed adults from rural areas in order to be able to deliver high quality products and services and to create and manage businesses in a sustainable manner. The project objectives included: • exploring Business Models of rural micro businesses in Europe and converting them into training tool while celebrating their innovation stories • developing and testing a training program for innovative business and transversal skills • developing practical and hands-on training methods and materials to assure rapid acquisition and long-term retention of core skills for developing new products and services, innovation practices and modern entrepreneurial techniques • developing and testing an online learning space for providing a learning environment for active or new in rural areas • contributing to integration of innovative entrepreneurial skills training into European curricula. Project activities have been implemented by a consortium of 6 partners from 6 EU countries (SE, RO, NL, ES, PT, , BGa) all having significant and complementary expertise in the field of entrepreneurial training, as well as competences in European project management. These objectives were achieved through: • Complex research study on training needs in key entrepreneurial competences of entrepreneurs, startups or those planning to run own business in rural areas. • Selection of active micro businesses from rural areas, and elaboration of their business models using Business Model Canvas (BMC) as the practical background for the LiveCanvas training tools, highlighting the set of skills most needed to sustainably lead entrepreneurial activities. • Research result and the analysis of the developed BMCs of businesses led to the development of the LIVECANVAS Curriculum, including 6 learning units, describing objectives, themes, methodological indications and learning outcomes. • Developing LiveCanvas educational multimedia product, which teaches business modelling by telling the stories of small businesses in rural areas in partner countries, the challenges they meet, and the key factors for their success and sustainability • Developing multimedia training materials to support the new curriculum suitable both for classroom based and online, individual learning • High quality, multidevice online learning space developed with multimedia training materials, offering a structured learning experience for autonomous learners • New Curriculum and educational tools, training materials and learning space validated by trainers from partner organisations (C1) and later successfully piloted in the partner countries by adult learners • Implementation of quality plan, evaluation strategy • Implementation of a dissemination and social media strategy • Design, hosting and maintenance of LiveCanvas multilingual, multidevice website The primary target group of the project were active or future entrepreneurs. The project has increased their access to open and high quality training and has improved key entrepreneurial skills. 11 trainers participated in the transnational training session, 80 persons participated in pilot training; and over 8.000 unique visitors have accessed the project webpage and online learning space, available free of charge. Adult trainers and education providers as secondary target group, as well as stakeholders have been presented the LIVECANVAS products in the various LiveCanvas multiplier events in partner countries (total 180 participants). The LiveCanvas Recommendation paper provides guidelines for further use of the project outcomes and use of the LiveCanvas (bridging business modeling canvas with digital storytelling for entrepreneurial training) approach by training organisations focusing on various target groups to boost the transferability of LIVECANVAS to other educational entities and European countries.