Mini EcoSystem Regional Networks

The main ground for the development of a modern territorial community is the availability of active, initiative, and highly competent members. It is highly professional specialists who create added value in territorial communities and significantly contribute to the revenue of local budgets. For sustainable growth, it is necessary to create and develop a mini ecosystems of entrepreneurship in territorial communities. This will provide opportunities to support self-employment and entrepreneurship of the local population permanently. Strengthening the capacity of local communities through improving the adult education system should be a priority for both the EU and other European countries, since it creates more stability and facilitates the exchange of best practices. The lack of a comprehensive approach to the development of local communities, a particularly important component of which is the creation of opportunities for self-employment and development of entrepreneurial skills among the local population, is a serious problem in regions. Starting and growing your own business is a lifelong process of learning and gaining experience. Self-preparation plays an important role in this process.

The project aims to develop functional system of comprehensive training for the those who desire to become self- employed citizens and entrepreneurs, as well as have knowledge in specialties of territorial development and entrepreneurship in their regions. The main emphasis in the project will be paid to the development of practical skills, studying business practices successfully functioning in the participating countries, as well as forming the mind-set and spirit of environmental awareness in entrepreneurship. Using distance formats in teaching process the project will simultaneously develop digital literacy among territorial communities’ (especially rural) population, which is also topical for all participating countries. This format will also allow to set communication links among the target audience allowing to enhance their future international cooperation. All project results in each country will create a unified mini eco-systems for the growth of self-emploment level, as well as entreprenership activity. Accordingly, this will help to reduce both the financial and social burden on local communities as usually young people and people 50+ are the groups of their special attention and care.

To achieve the results set we are planning to: - study the territorial development needs of the following groups: micro- entrepreneurs, experts of economic and regulatory departments of local self-governments, and local public activists. With this purpose each party of the project will make a research survey and its analysis; develop a complex training course "Business education for entrepreneurs” (PR1) on self-employability and entrepreneurship with the knowledge of business specialties of their territorial community; - conduct real-time online trainings for the pilot groups, help them obtain the knowledge and skills necessary to increase their level of self-employability and competitiveness, which, in its turn, will enhance the development of their territorial community which is the most desirable result of the project; develop MOOC “Entrepreneurship for all” (PR2) which will be based on the materials and integrated as an element of blended learning into the overall training course of the project allowing to strengthen and facilitate the quality of learning outcomes of the pilot groups; develop a specialized online platform called "International Training and Consulting Centre" functioning as a service center for the support of mini-ecosystems during and in post-project period.

PR1- Course "Business education for enterpreneurs" define and develop professional competencies for entrepreneurs of territorial communities in accordance with the regional specifics. Speciall attention be given to fostering eco- awareness among these entrepreneurs and self-employed members of territorial communities. The course through available interactive formats, allow to form professional competencies in self-employment and entrepreneurship and simultaneously develop digital skills among the pilot group participants. To determine training needs and topics, each project partner conducted research and analysis on pre-approved 20 questions. Target group: entrepreneurs and representatives of local and central government. Answers to the questions were received from more than 50 representatives of each partner country. On the basis of the analysis of the answers, the topics of the training in PR1 were determined. The authors of the topics: - What is entrepreneurship, value proposition, marketing and planning - Pitching. Elevator pitch. Career story telling. Presentation of team homework and feedback - Financing. What do you get and what do you give under the different financing models - Digital opportunities. SaaS, GMB, social networks and everything else - European green deal - Applications in agriculture, rural tourism and energy are approved professors from the Faculty of Economics of Sofia University. The materials are at https://namcb-org.bg/mecos/en/materials PR 2 - Massive Open On-line Course “Entrepreneurship for all” developed on a distance learning platform facilitate the availability of business education for residents of local communities (who be able to study remotely (saving time, costs for travel, accommodation, meals)), as well as their digital literacy. It be integrated as an element of blended learning into the overall training course of the project and allow to strengthen and facilitate the quality of learning outcomes of the pilot groups. Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) - "Entrepreneurship for All" https://e-platformmecos.com/ is an example of high-quality digital learning opportunities for adults, developed based on materials produced in the PR1 task. The course was prepared and developed by experienced specialists with the necessary expertise in the technical specifics of adult education. The main goal of the Training Course is the formation of practical skills of an entrepreneur as the author of an idea and the coordinator of starting his/her own business, and finally, the person who is confident in implementing all the points of his/her business plan into life. This goal sets the following tasks that are fulfilled in the Training Course: To develop future entrepreneurs' self-confidence and professional skills through practical exercises. To increase the speed of the future entrepreneur's reaction to various tasks and risks. To acquaint students with the most effective modern techniques and methods of writing various types of business plans. To develop an entrepreneurial vision of his/her business and the ability to transfer it to the hired team. To teach students to think out-of-the-box, to see what others do not see, and to be able to convey the essence of their own idea intelligibly (clearly), partially delegate it for effective implementation to a hired team. To teach students how to build effective business processes, choose a profitable business model, make a marketing strategy, and review work with contractors to receive a steady income and periodically find time and money for the development of their own company. All topics of the Training Course should contain the materials to fulfill all these tasks in the most effective and efficient ways. Based on the results of the analysis that took place in all partner countries, we defined the main goal of the Training Course for our study program. PR 3 - Specialized educational online platform "International Training and Consulting Centre" be functioning as a service center for support of mini-ecosystems. CEIPES has been responsible for the PR3 activity, the specialized educational online platform "International Training and Consulting Centre". A specialized website has been created in the attempt to combine easily accessible educational tools with the possibility for participants of consulting each other. The final structure implemented by CEIPES involves: a Forum section, where anyone can subscribe to one out of five blogs, each dealing with one of the five main topics treated by the project (Green Economy, Digitalisation, Financing, Pitching, Entrepreneurship); the Documents section, containing Open-access documents accessible to everyone, in all languages of the project (English, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Italian, Greek and Polish); a FAQs section in the 6 aforementioned languages, where users can find some answers on frequently asked questions about the contents of the project; lastly, the platform contains the link to the two previous project results, namely the course "Business education for entrepreneurs" and the Massive Open Online Course “Entrepreneurship for all”. The platform has been developed following the principles of inclusivity, including tools to facilitate the accessibility of the website for people with disabilities.