Entrepreneurship plays a key role in Europe’s Economy. In order to generate innovation, growth and jobs and unleash the potential of the diverse groups of potential entrepreneurs, we need to remove existing obstacles and revolutionize the culture of entrepreneurship in the EU. We need a much more supportive environment and an entrepreneurial mindset, that includes all previously excluded target groups.
It is a real cause for concern that participation of adult learners in the UK, and in many other EU countries, has fallen to a record low. The UK has seen nearly 4 million lost learners since 2010. Adults in lower socio–economic groups are half as likely to take part in learning than those in higher socio–economic groups. Increasing the number of adults accessing education and training will be vital both to boosting productivity and to supporting adults to adapt to rapid economic change. Beyond the economic benefits, evidence also shows that adults who take part in learning are more likely to have better health and wellbeing, and to be active in their communities. As one of E-Café’s subtarget groups, the EU Commission identifies the potential of female entrepreneurs as an ‘under-exploited source of economic growth’ and has launched the Europe 2020 strategy to tackle this.
By addressing the needs of adult learner target groups who are often excluded from professional success and even social participation, we simultaneously address two other priorities in the EU: social inclusion of migrants and increasing the number of female entrepreneurs.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of E-CAFE therefore is clear: to facilitate entrepreneurship for under educated or disadvantaged target group by providing tailored and targeted entrepreneurship education resources in a learning friendly, low-threshold environment.
Specifically, we will:
IO1: E-CAFE TOOLBOX AND OERS – a comprehensive toolbox, which presents state of the art methods for the development of an Entrepreneurial Mindset and for business model development and designed in a supportive simple and easy to understand way. The resources will also contain additional materials that will allow other stakeholders (adult educators) to implement them into their training and service offers.
IO2: 5 ENTREPRENEURSHIP CAFES AND 1 E-CAFE OPERATOR HANDBOOK – Implementation of 5 entrepreneurship cafes (a series of target group specific events providing low-threshold learning and networking opportunities) in the partner regions. The lessons learned will be condensed to a blueprint handbook that enables other organisations beyond the participating partner regions to implement E-CAFE Entrepreneurship Cafes. The guide will include best practices based on the experience of the project partners, who will provide all relevant information from the determination of the venue to the acquisition and approach of participants.
IO3: 1 E-CAFE INTERACTIVE SMARTPHONE/TABLET APP working as both, content dissemination platform as well as interactive exchange and calendar/location tool. It will give access to the OERs and also provide information about the established E-CAFE Entrepreneurship Cafés across Europe and events hosted by their organisers.
