Project based on three pillars. First one is developing a One-on-One mentoring (3OM) model for higher education institutions, mentorship training and adapting relevant lectures appropriate to on-line mentoring activities , second one is developing a ‘training of mentoring’ programme to increase efficiency ay on-line mentoring activities and the third one is developing an e-platform to use as training mediator and develop materials for e-platform. At first pillar of project aims to make a comprehensive research on One-on-One mentoring models in Europe by searching academic research results, policy papers and also using results of other projects already carried out. İnnovative side of the first pillar is preparing a survey to analyse needs and expectations of young entrepreneurs, academicians, mentors and even firms that will be hosting entrepreneurs for on-line mentoring activities. Survey is planned to be implemented to over 3600 entrepreneurs, academicians, mentors and firm representatives at 6 European countries. A common One-on-One mentoring learning model will be developed and relevant lectures will be adapted by considering cultural practical and systematic differences of the participating countries according to results of survey and research findings. Second pillar of the project is developing a ‘training of mentoring’ programme both for mentors and entrepreneurs that will be hosting youth for on-line mentoring. Although ‘training of mentors’ programmes have some common elements and common developing and implementation rules, developing a programme for academicians and mentors for facilitating on-line mentoring activities to increase quality and efficiency of the entrepreneurial programmes is an innovative approach. It is expected that such a programme will help to strengthen university-industry-youth relationships and increase the quality of science, engineering and technology education by bringing all relevant parties together. Third pillar on the project is developing a Moodle based e-platform which allows academicians, firms, mentors and youth to follow, monitor and assess oil-line mentoring activities and lectures related to that on- line mentoring activities. E-platform to be developed within the project will be bringing together academy, including both mentors, entrepreneurs and academicians, and industry together to contribute higher education's quality, to facilitate transition between school and working life, to increase youth entrepreneurial skills, and also to support development and competitiveness of entrepreneurship and particularly SMEs. 6 national workshops, 2 international conferences, 1 'training of mentoring’ programme with a camp, and on-line mentoring organized within the project. Intellectual outputs of the projects will be "One-on-One Mentoring Model" “Training of Mentoring Programme" and "e-platform". It is expected to create awareness on all participants and relevant stakeholders about the importance of collaboration between university and industry to increase the skills and entrepreneurial of youth. Expected impacts on partner/shareholder universities are increasing their education quality and achievements, expanding their Erasmus by signing agreements with partners’ universities. In our PROJECT, we are putting Bloom’s studies to the test. Because we believe in the one-on-one mentorship model, we invest just as much time, if not more, on building the platform tools for our mentors as we do for our young entrepreneurs. These mentors of our programs are often design and engineering professionals with many years of experience that is valuable to a career-changing young entrepreneur. But they are not trained in education and teaching methods. In order to empower mentors to smoothly guide a young tech entrepreneur from beginner-to-hire,we rely on a suite of mentorship tools and processes to facilitate guided learning. As the science parks are regional development zones, project's micro impact will directly to the regions that science parks of the partners serve! Desired impact is increment at the quality and achievements of universities, skills of mentors, entrepreneurial of youth, and competiveness of entrepreneurships. Desired national impact is creating awareness on collaboration of academy and industry for mentoring and training of young entrepreneurs and dissemination of model to be developed within the project across partner countries. Desired impact at European level is dissemination of the e-platform and model by starting from the universities that has Erasmus bilateral agreement with each other and catch the standard education and training quality for students. It is also desired to initiate new future collaborations and partnerships between different institutions at different activates of the Project. Sustainability of the e-platform in the mean of availability is ensured by the coordinator as Mersin Technopark already has its own.
The project was implemented in the context of the European-wide development of the innovative entrepreneurship ecosystem. Partners include 5 technoparks (mersin technopark, tartu, madan, espaitec, step c) and an entrepreneurship school (IStec brussels) All partners carry out studies to develop the entrepreneurship ecosystem on a national and transnational scale. Entrepreneurs' motivations for the development of mentoring, which is one of the greatest needs in overcoming the difficulties in realizing their ideas, ensured the establishment of this partnership and the emergence and successful execution of the project. The project generally aims to train qualified mentors for young technology entrepreneurs. Achieving this general goal has been possible with the realization of 3 chained goals. These: 1. Training experienced business people who have successfully completed their entrepreneurship processes on how to mentor young technology entrepreneurs and bringing new mentors to the ecosystem 2. Providing mentoring activities by matching young technology entrepreneurs with mentors 3. Raising awareness about mentoring The project has 3 main groups of participants Trainer mentors: This group consists of experienced mentors and provided training to mentor candidates. Mentor Candidates: It consists of experienced business people who have been in the industry for at least 5 years, with or without mentoring experience, and who are motivated to mentor. Young Tech Entrepreneurs (Start-Ups): The participants in this group are young entrepreneurs who have just started their business life and need mentor support in various fields (hard or softskills). The definition of young here refers to the entrepreneur's experience in realizing the business idea, not his age. In addition to these main participant profiles, different institutions that are actors of the entrepreneurship ecosystem have been included in the project activities. These: universities NGOs Institutions like Chambers. The project team implemented the activities determined in the proposal in order to achieve the objectives determined in the proposal period, by making improvements when necessary in response to the changes that took place during the project. Accordingly, the general activities of the project are as follows: Conducting needs analysis and reporting to identify the needs of mentors and entrepreneurs regarding the mentoring processes Conducting a comparative study of mentoring processes across Europe Organizing national Workshops in every country Preparation of Curriculum for Mentor Training Training Realization of the Training Program Preparation of project reports Conducting transnational project meetings and post-COVID online project meetings Holding the Dissemination Conference Preparation of the e-Platform Making mentor-mentee pairings With the project, trainer mentors, mentor candidates and start-ups from all partner countries were reached, and the common problems and needs of mentors and mentees were determined. Thanks to the project, the goal of raising awareness about mentoring was achieved. And one of the ultimate goals of the project, raising new mentors, was achieved after the training, and then mentor-mentee matching was ensured, enabling start-ups to reach the support they needed in areas such as realizing their initiatives and commercializing their products, sales and marketing.