Developing entrepreneurial youth, entrepreneurial mindsets and skills for business start ups Peter Ramsden, Vilnius 14 th November 2013 Peter Ramsden Director of Inclusion
Dec 24, 2015
Developing entrepreneurial youth, entrepreneurial mindsets and skills for business
start ups
Peter Ramsden, Vilnius 14th November 2013
Peter Ramsden Director of Inclusion
Who are the young entrepreneurs?
Evan Spiegel 23 and Mark Zuckerberg too old at 29
Reshma Saujani
Enterprise and the crisis
• Across Europe, more than one in Five youth aged 15-29 are unemployed. Double to triple the average rate and in some countries over 50% of young people
• ‘Make a job not take a job’ has become a youth mantra - up to 40% of youth would like to become an entrepreneur (flash barometer)
• But support systems are often not well adapted to support young people in self employment
Youth enterprise characteristics
• Young males (5%) are twice as likely to be self employed as young females (~ 2.5%)
• Older young people are more likely to be self employed than the very young
• Certain ethnic minority groups have higher male entrepreneurship (e.g. Turks, Pakistanis) but very low female entrepreneurship. Others such as Chinese are more equal
• Young people are more likely to set up social enterprises than older people
• Hybrid entrepreneurship is growing where young people set up a business to pay for college or as well as a job or as a stepping stone to work
Youth are positive about entrepreneurship
Self employment rates by age vary enormously across the Union
The enterprise ladder
Integrated Business Support
Access to Finance
Culture and Conditions
Consolidation and Growth
1 Culture and conditionsCulture•Enterprise culture is hard to change•TV, Media and publicity can play a part (e.g. Welsh Entrepreneurship Action Plan and women entrepreneurs)•Enterprise education in first, second and third level education
– Enterprising curriculum – team work, creativity, project focus– Enterprise experience: Mini-enterprise, Tenner campaigns, visits
•Youth role models are critical•Awareness raisingConditions: •Regulatory barriers need to come down
– Make registration quicker and easier (e.g. World Bank doing Business report)– Single tax for start-ups (e.g. France)– Encourage informal businesses to go formal
Enterprise education:
• Tenner campaign (originally Make Your Mark) works in schools 10,000 students given one £10 note to use to make a business and make returns over 1 month.
• Mini Companies – developed in Valnalon, Asturias and supported under EQUAL - students set up trading enterprises
• Finland, enterprise education in the Curriculum• Danger of over-emphasising certain expensive types (e.g.
University spinouts) at expense of improving other aspects
2 Integrated start up support
• Start up support commonly fragmented Youth often missed by mainstream services
• Bridging allowances help entrepreneurs to get started e.g. converting benefits into a lump sum or Ich AG in Germany where participants get monthly allowance of €600
• Special schemes for youth like the Princes Trust in UK, mentoring plus financial support
• Coaching is a critical support, often as important than business planning
• Need to link different elements ESF can help to improve the whole support ecosystem by addressing missing elements, coordination and linkage (premises, finance, advice)
Coworking spaces and pop-ups
• New types of coworking space have created a buzz around self-employment and social enterprise – (e.g. Amsterdam Hub)
Bremen ZZZ: Pop ups and the circular economy
•
3 Access to finance
• EU progress microfinance facility• Locally rooted micro finance institutions can support
youth enterprise• Finance needs to be combined with other ‘soft’
support (e.g. through coaching vouchers)• Financial advice, literacy and capability are part of
the mix• New forms of finance such as crowd fiunding, peer to
peer micro finance likely to become more important for youth
4 Consolidation and growth
• Youth Start up is not the whole story• Youth enterprises are smaller than average• They need support after the first 12 months
– Clear role for ERDF (coordinating with ESF)– Premises – second stage workspace– Innovation– Access to markets– Finance for growth
Working across the funds
• Specific investment priorities for business creation and social enterprise
• Also possible under employment thematic objective
• Work across the funds – ERDF can do workspace, SME growth and investment funds
• Consider Community Led Local Development approaches to support enterprising communities
• Coproduce solutions with young people
Involving young people in the discussion at city level• URBACT Project My Generation at Work• Rotterdam, Antwerp, Braga, Glasgow, Gdansk, Maribor,
Riga, Warsaw, Valencia, Tampere, Turin, Thessaloniki
The starting point/problem/challe
nge of the MGatWork project
The starting point/problem/challe
nge of the MGatWork project
Ideas how to solve the challenge in your
city
Ideas how to solve the challenge in your
city
GFI’s, Pilots, experiments leading
to prototypes of a new service
GFI’s, Pilots, experiments leading
to prototypes of a new service
Diffusing the new service model
broader
Diffusing the new service model
broaderConsolidating the new service into
practice (into Local Action Plans)
Consolidating the new service into
practice (into Local Action Plans)
Changing the whole concept/work culture
of the service
Changing the whole concept/work culture
of the service
Spaces of Young Business Boosters
”Promoting the employability of young people in the changing labour market, with special emphasis on enterprising skills and attitudes”
GFI: GO FOR IT!
GFI: GO FOR IT!
GFI: GO FOR IT!
GFI: GO FOR IT!
GFI: GO FOR IT!
GFI: GO FOR IT!
GFI: GO FOR IT!
GFI: GO FOR IT!
GFI: GO FOR IT!
GFI: GO FOR IT!
Some tools
• Community of Practice in Inclusive Entrepreneurship – ESF learning network
• Website at http://www.cop-ie.eu/• Diagnostic tool for main target groups
including for youth
The COPIE diagnostic tool: Traffic light scoring for Andalusia
CoPIE Microfinance manual
Some conclusions
• Understand the existing support system, ask where are the gaps? Are young people being reached? What more could we be doing?
• Coproduce and innovate – this is the time• Change the culture around entrepreneurship – for anyone
anywhere! (role models, TV, education)• Address the whole enterprise ecosystem (culture and conditions,
start up support, access to finance, continuity and growth) • Link financial and non financial support – there are no silver
bullets, but integration helps• Support inclusive entrepreneurship approaches and social
enterprise and look for scaleable and spreadable solutions
Thank you