"Create for Region" was running as a student business project competition from 2014 to 2016. The project showed its ability of promoting youth entrepreneurship and gained widespread public recognition and awards in Latvia. At the same time the project revealed a number of alarming facts – low interest of young people in developing business in the regions and the fact that the majority of young people abandoned the desire to implement their business ideas once they faced their first difficulties. Organizers of the previous project want to use the experience and knowledge to explore the following factors in the next project: • young people’s motivation to start a business in the regions • young people’s approach to developing their business ideas • young people’s approach to variety of problems and overcoming obstacles in the implementation of their business projects. To do so, at least 200 young entrepreneurs from Latvia and Lithuania will be studied within two years of the project. The research will use both survey and interviewing methods. Each country will capture an educational movie that will show young people’s path from idea creation to its successful implementation. The results will be disseminated in Latvia, Lithuania and other countries in order to give statistical justification for new projects implementations that will promote youth entrepreneurship in areas with low economical activity throughout Europe. Educational movies will be distributed online and in learning institutions of Latvia and Lithuania to show other young people the way from creating the ideas to starting their own business. The project will research as well a variety of factors and conditions affecting the opportunities for a successful implementation of youth business projects. In order to assess this impact in Latvia, by attracting additional funding, the business project competition will be held once again with a wide range of media involvement and prize money. Youth will be organized in teams for taking part in this competition. On contrast, in Lithuania youngsters who have submitted their applications for financial support for their business ideas in 2-3 municipalities will participate in the project. Lithuanian participants will serve as a control group and their results will be compared with Latvian results in order to find statistically meaningful differences. In both countries youngsters themselves will take all the actions needed – create business plans, search for funding, speak with municipalities, local government, customers and partners. Young people will learn from everyday experience and project organizers will research their thoughts, growth, future goals and how they overcome difficulties to achieve the objectives. Project organizers in both countries will provide youngsters with mentorship as well. Young participants will create at least 30 new businesses and 30 new jobs within the project in both countries. Youngsters who participate in this project will gain very important life experiences, as well as a new level of consciousness, that should result in a new generation of entrepreneurs who are ready to create and work not only for their own benefit and interest, but also for the public good and interest. Results of the research, done during the course of the project, will allow municipalities and youth NGOs to improve their existing activities and / or develop new activities that promote entrepreneurship among young people. Due to the statistical evidence that will be gained through this project, it should be also much easier for them to attract financing for those new activities.
"Create for Region" was running as a student business project competition from 2014 to 2016. The project showed its ability of promoting youth entrepreneurship and gained widespread public recognition and awards in Latvia and in Europe by European Commission. At the same time the project revealed a number of alarming facts – low interest of young people in developing business in the regions and the fact that the majority of young people abandoned the desire to implement their business ideas once they faced their first difficulties. Therefore from 2017 to 2019 project was organized again in order to additionally research youngsters in Latvia and Lithuania with following goals: To identify what kind of youngsters in Latvia and Lithuania are starting businesses in regions and why. What resources they have and what are they goals. What are young people’s approach to variety of problems and overcoming obstacles in the implementation of their business projects. Whether competition as a motivational process for entrepreneurship helps youngsters to realize their business projects in regions and helps attract young entrepreneurs to regions. In order to achieve those goals following tasks were done: From March 2017 to November 2018 was organized youth business project competition “Create for Region” in Latvia. Two quantitative researches were done in Latvia and in Lithuania about young entrepreneurs in regions. Additionally many interviews with youngsters were done throughout the project. The project was organized by NGO “Radām Novadam”, for which it was the first such project, although previous “Create for Region” project was also organized by the members of NGO on behalf of another organization. The international partner for project was NGO “Inovaciju Biuras” from Lithuania, which has significant experience with participation in many different Erasmus projects, mainly by being partner in different youth exchange projects. Due to participation in this project, Lithuanian partners gained new experience and knowledge in youth projects. 219 youngsters without previous entrepreneurship experience took part in the competition in Latvia. During the course of the competition, youngsters themselves took all the actions needed – created business plans, searched for funding, spoke with municipalities, local government, customers and partners. Young people learned from everyday experience and project organizers researched their thoughts, growth, future goals and how they overcome difficulties to achieve the objectives in both countries. Two surveys were done in each country- one in the year 2017 and another one at the autumn 2018. 81 participant took part in the first survey in Latvia and 19 of them participated in the second one, mostly the ones who had successfully implemented their business ideas. In Lithuania ,125 youngsters took part in the first survey and 50 in the second one. The competition in Latvia attracted different cooperation partners and supporters who provided publicity, mentorship and helped to cover some parts of prize funds. During the project 2 international conferences were organized in Vilnius and Riga. More than 20 youngsters participated in each of them and gained new information and knowledge that could have assisted in the implementation process of their business ideas. More than 200 youngsters in Latvia had their first real business experience by participating in the project and that was one of the main achievements of the project. At least 8 business projects were implemented and 11 new jobs created in regions. The main achievement in Lithuania was research itself as well as creation of educational movie and additionally video clips for young entrepreneurs. Survey and shooting of video provided youngsters with opportunity to reflect on themselves and better understand their motivation and goals, as well as it provided learning opportunity to present themselves in order to attract new clients and business partners. At least three business projects that were implemented because of the project are sustainable in the long period of time and will positively influence lives of youngsters as well as lives of local people. Those projects are a new kindergarten, new factory and new water recreation center. Because of the research that was done, it is easier to understand what type of youngsters and why are implementing business projects in regions. Researches revealed that previous experience, knowledge and access to funding doesn’t really have much influence on whether business project will be implemented or not. The most important things are character and will power of youngsters. Researches also proved how competition as a motivation tool helps to implement business projects in regions. The results will definitely help provide statistical basis for attracting funding for similar future business project competitions in regions.