Youth unemployment across Europe remains on an upwards trajectory, and traditional jobs are being crowded out in favour of new technology-orientated roles. At the same time, young people as innovators, are creating new jobs and markets. Much has been written and done in the area of entrepreneurship. In fact, youth entrepreneurship has now become synonymous to "innovation" and many projects have been funded with this objective in mind. Our current youth projects and our standing Youth Advisory Board that has overseen this application pointed out that today's youth not only require skills in hyper-demand areas but also soft skills which are transferable and adaptable to a variety of working environments. In the last five years, empirical evidence suggests the rise of a new category of entrepreneurship: digital entrepreneurship. Digital entrepreneurship can be defined as new ventures or the transformation of an existing business through the creation and usage of novel digital technologies, such as social media marketing, data analytics, mobile usage or cloud solutions. Digital enterprises are characterised by a high degree of utilisation of such digital technologies, due to their ability to improve business operations, heighten business intelligence, increase customer and stakeholder engagement and invent new business models. To respond to this gap, the IARS International Institute has developed a strategic partnership bringing together 4 EU member states (the UK, Greece, Cyprus and the Czech Republic) to run EDEEY as a youth-led transnational project that will develop, test and implement innovative practices in a newly-emerged area in the field of entrepreneurship. With an ever-changing world, rising unemployment and the growing influence of social media and technology, understanding the ways in which digital technology can be harnessed for entrepreneurial pursuits is vital in both preparing young people for the future of work and giving them a toolkit to survive outside the traditional labour market. EDEEY responds to a number of sectoral and horizontal priorities, while it has been developed with the key aim of delivering the new Youth Strategy and Erasmus+ overall objectives. In summary, the intellectual outputs of this project are as follows: IO1: Curriculum development for young people and youth workers/ educationalists IO2: The project delivery of the eLearning platform for participants including two accredited e-courses for (a) young people (b) youth workers/ educationalists. IO3: Face-to-Face Training for participants in all participating countries. IO4: A Final e-book developed by all partners reporting on findings of research conducted and results of the project. Published in all partner languages (English, Czech, Greek). EDEEY offers an innovative, accredited training course to prepare those without access to infinite capital on how to utilise digital entrepreneurship as a way of poverty alleviation, whilst also increasing the creation of jobs for their peers. Non-formal education is just as crucial as formal education for the development of young people to suit the new future of work, therefore EDEEY is a vital initiative to adequately prepare young people for the labour market. In addition to the youth-led, innovative training programme that the project will create and pilot, it will generate numerous entrepreneurial social action activities through youth volunteering and internships. EDEEY will utilise the concept and practise of digital entrepreneurship as a means of increasing social inclusion for young people who are economically marginalized in society. Responding to the priorities set aside in the Lisbon Agenda and the Europe 2020 strategy treating digital entrepreneurship as a primary component in smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. EDEEY will target young people between the ages of 16-25 with a particular focus on young people from low-income households, females and those from marginalized backgrounds such as Roma. Adopting a youth-led methodology, the project will construct and implement evidence-based, well-tested and replicable educational and training curricula to develop young peoples' practice, creative and entrepreneurial skills to enable them to harness the power of digital entrepreneurship and offer economic empowerment. Many studies have recognised the role in which entrepreneurship aids poverty alleviation, enabling those from disadvantaged backgrounds to break away from their underprivileged positions and seek their own solution to unemployment or discrimination in the labour market. While acquiring these new skills and competencies, our target groups will also receive accreditation as the courses will receive a CPD status. Where applicable we will also offer an ESC Certificate and YouthPass.
The EDEEY project aim was to upskill and empower young people through the promotion of education and social entrepreneurship. EDEEY offers an innovative training course to prepare young people on how to utilise digital entrepreneurship as a way of poverty alleviation, whilst also increasing the creation of jobs for their peers. The EDEEY project has utilised the concept and practice of social, digital entrepreneurship as a means of increasing social inclusion for young people who are economically marginalized in society. Adopting a youth-led methodology, the project has constructed and implemented evidence-based, well-tested and replicable educational and training curricula to develop young peoples' practice, creative and entrepreneurial skills to enable them to harness the power of digital entrepreneurship and offer economic empowerment. The consortium decided to put extra effort on providing the training to those who face geographical, economic and social constraints that limit their participation in the labour market, such as rural lodging, caring responsibilities or societal discrimination, young women, migrants, and those who come from low-income households.
With technology, the labour market is changing. Flexibility and autonomy are also concepts that are now, more than ever, attracting the younger population. We believe that this shift in the paradigm provides a good opportunity to those from marginalized and disadvantaged backgrounds. Creating a training programme that young people can take at their own time and that will provide them with the opportunities to become Digital Entrepreneurs will allow more marginalised people to get into the labour market. Although we created this project before the pandemic, we believe that the shift that the labour market took during and after the pandemic have only strengthened this project’s value. With rising unemployment and the growing influence of social media and technology, understanding the ways in which digital technology can be harnessed for entrepreneurial pursuits is vital, especially for young people. Acknowledging that non-formal education is just as crucial as formal, especially for youth development, the EDEEY Erasmus+ project has been seen as a vital initiative to adequately prepare young people for the labour market, particularly those from low-income households, females, migrants and those from marginalized backgrounds.