"Young & Smart" - a comprehensive educational program in the field of entrepreneurship and social activity of young people. It responds to the problem of too low level of entrepreneurship among young Europeans, leading to maladjustment to the modern job market, making misjudged choices of educational and professional path, the necessity to work below their ambition and qualifications, and finally - a high level of unemployment. The answer to these problems is wise education adapted to the changing reality and creating conditions which promote development of entrepreneurship. Partnership established by three institutions with various activities (Polish NGO - Greece Institute of Technology - Polish Social Media Agency) recognized that a good basis for creating described conditions is cooperation between the private, public and non-governmental sectors, which allows the creation of an “entrepreneurial ecosystem". Two overarching thematic areas: education in the field of entrepreneurship and promoting activities that strengthen the position of young people, constitute the axis of the "Young & Smart" project and are a response to the needs of the target group - young people and their tutors, trainers and guardians. The main goal of the project is to jointly develop and popularize the practical compendium of the trainer's knowledge – The BOOKLET. It is a compendium of 21 scenarios: innovative methods and tools used in non-formal education in the field of youth entrepreneurship - based on developed best practices and new projects that have never been undertaken before. Booklet will be practical, focused on the preparation of mentors, coaches and trainers to be able to communicate in an accessible way and help young people who are preparing to enter the job market and function safely in the public, social and professional space. The scenarios will include: creative thinking, the ability to build self-esteem, entrepreneurship, improvisation, design work, building your own business, design thinking. Each scenario will be enriched with an introductory video, which will contain instructions for the exercises. The goal of these 21 films is to limit the role of the trainer / tutor in controlling the educational process and to support the participants during particular activities. Thanks to their use, the scenarios will be clear and accessible even to people with lower coaching competences. The attractiveness of the "Young & Smart" Program will be raised by the use of new technologies in the educational process. For this purpose, the 3 simulation games in the field of entrepreneurship, project work and design thinking will be produced in the online version (along with a description of the methodical and practical application in youth work, taking into account the specificity of coaching work with young people). The use of didactic games will undoubtedly stimulate an active social attitude and the beneficiaries themselves - young people. They will be more willing to undertake an intellectual effort while working with an innovative tool developing their social and professional competences. Games, films, online Booklet will be prepared in 3 languages: English, Polish and Greek - all developed materials will be implemented on the open educational platform created by the partnership. Effects of activities in the Project will provide new methods, tools and materials perfectly matching the new challenges of the EU's growth strategy for 2010-2020, which aims to develop: knowledge-based economy and innovation (intelligent and more competitive increase of knowledge), and a high-employment economy that provides social and territorial cohesion, including inclusive growth. It is important for the partnership to meet educational challenges related to the problem of too low level of youth entrepreneurship in Europe and to create a new comprehensive educational offer in this area for young people (aged 16-26). In the dimension of innovation, adaptation and multiplication of solutions which are known and proven in the country of each partner, and through the commonly identified problem - lack of new and comprehensive (and at the same time interesting) solutions in informal education of young people, it is possible to develop a comprehensive product serving the target group and its wide scope of dissemination through RES.
The goal of the Young & Smart project was to improve the quality of work with youth by developing and spreading through the partnership a comprehensive program called a practical compendium of the trainer's knowledge - the Young & Smart on-line booklet. It was planned in the application form that it would be entitled "Young & Smart - a comprehensive educational program in the field of entrepreneurship and social activity of youth”, having in mind that this form will be more encouraging to read and use materials. It was planned that the booklet and related workshops would consist of 7 components, i.e. entrepreneurship, building your own business, creativity, design thinking, improvisation, design work and a sense of value. In the course of working out the results for each of the above-mentioned components, 3 practical scenarios of classes with guidelines for the lecturer were developed. Therefore, materials were created with the content of innovative methods and tools used in non-formal education in the field of youth entrepreneurship - based on the best practices and new, not yet undertaken ventures. As it has been mentioned before, the developed booklet is practical, focused on preparing mentors, coaches and youth trainers so that they can convey their knowledge in an accessible way and help young people (2nd target group: 150 people - program recipients - 110 people taking part in 2 PL / GR dissemination editions and 40 people taking part in pilot workshops) preparing to enter the labour market, functioning safely in public, social and professional space (1 target group of users of the "Y & S" program, youth from 16 to 26 years old - 25 people participating in testing meetings). Each scenario has been enriched with an introductory video, which includes instructions for the exercises contained therein. The purpose of these 21 films is to limit the role of the trainer/tutor to control the educational process and to support participants while going through individual activities. Thanks to their use, even people with lower coaching competencies will be able to use the scenarios (this was confirmed by pilot meetings/workshops as one of the stages of IO). The attractiveness of the "Young & Smart" program has been increased by the use of new technologies in the educational process. For this purpose, they produced the online version (with a description of the methodical and practical use in youth work, taking into account the specificity of coaching work with young people) 3 simulation games in the field of entrepreneurship, project work and design thinking. The value of the films is that they work on mobile phones (a basic tool commonly used by young people), thanks to which the trainer, who runs the workshop, can also plan a field game. The project was a response to the problem of a too low level of entrepreneurship among young Europeans, leading to maladaptation to the modern labour market, making ill-considered educational and vocational paths, the need to work below their ambitions and qualifications, and finally - a high level of unemployment. The partnership set itself the goal of preventing the abandonment of 16+ education and promoting and inclusion in fields related to education, training and youth work in order to make high-quality non-formal learning available to all young people. PRIORITIES AND THEMATIC RANGES SELECTED AT THE APPLICATION STAGE:HAVE BEEN COMPLETED AND IMPLEMENTED. The following sentence best summarizes the partnership's choice of horizontal priorities: "Specialists without social competences have no future ahead of them.” (source: W. Lanthaler, J. Zugmann - "Action I. A new way of thinking about a career"). The current youth are the future specialists and whether they will be competent employees aware of their own development needs depends on comprehensive actions that should be taken for them now. The results developed in the project support the stimulation of innovative and entrepreneurial attitudes among young people by introducing entrepreneurship as one of the key competences in informal learning programs. Therefore, the creation and promotion by the partnership of materials that cause digital inclusion of young people and motivating them to work on their own development is justified and indispensable in a developing Europe and can be freely multiplied for other ages. All goals and results achieved under IO (booklet, film production and transcription, online simulation games and an educational platform containing all results) were developed in 3 languages, i.e. English, and the languages of the partners: Polish, Greek and are implemented on an open educational platform and other open educational resources.