Rural Business Innovation Hub

The evolving economic and social changes in Europe demand constant innovation and adaptation from villages, businesses, and public institutions.Rural areas face challenges in maintaining attractiveness, competitiveness, and sustainable economic growth, exacerbated by the migration of youth and individuals with potential to urban areas. Young people in rural settings encounter difficulties acquiring entrepreneurial skills and accessing opportunities comparable to their urban counterparts. Limited options hinder exposure to diverse opportunities, emphasizing the need for alternatives to explore their interests. Moreover, a lack of encouragement and motivation inhibits their active contribution to rural community development. As a result, we aimed to analyse and understand young people’s needs in this context and come up with a solution. To tackle these challenges, our project developed a new curriculum for entrepreneurship skills, incorporating EU best practices to promote growth and sustainability in rural areas. Business Hubs, including a Digital Business Hub for young entrepreneurs, were introduced to enhance their skills and competencies, enabling them to initiate businesses in their local communities.

The vision of the project “Rural Business Innovation Hub” was to help solve the lack of entrepreneurship education in rural areas. The aim of our project was to build and foster entrepreneurship competences among young people from rural areas, starting from an entrepreneurial attitude, and apply it to solutions to today's society challenges. There were 4 objectives that the consortium aimed to achieve: Increasing the level of entrepreneurial competencies among youth (18-30 years) in 6 rural areas Encouraging the development of 6 rural communities and the creation of opportunities for better living Creating awareness about the importance of entrepreneurial literacy among youth aged 18-30 Document/prove the utility of a Business Innovation HUB in expanding opportunities for youth aged 18-30 from rural areas Through our project we wanted to motivate young people from rural areas to overcome their barriers , to empower them and enhance their self esteem, to highlight the massive role of the youth workers in supporting young people from rural areas and to create a supportive ecosystem that not only addresses immediate challenges but also fosters a long-term positive impact on youth from rural backgrounds.

We implemented all the activities we aimed to do since the start of the project application and start date. We had 2 international TPMs face to face (1 in Romania and 1 in Portugal) and 1 online TPM during the project lifetime. - Developed IO1: Booklet-Gathering of good practices/analysis-entrepreneurship in rural areas - Developed IO2: Educational content for youth entrepreneurship in rural areas - Developed IO3:Digital HUB - Developed IO4:Guide to setting up and running a business hub -Carried out an LTTA (Learning, Teaching and Training Activity) in Romania, Targu-Jiu, where youth workers and practitioners around Europe, from the 6 partner countries, expanded their knowledge about entreprenurship and developed their skills of transferring and promoting entrepreneurship to the target groups in rural areas -Online final conference-multiplier event -One face to face multiplier event

The results of our project are: -a new booklet that includes practical information and 34 success stories of entrepreneurial startups from Slovenia, Romania, Croatia, Slovakia and Portugal, designed to assist rural youth in launching their own business ideas and fostering an entrepreneurial spirit among them. The primary objective is to offer an inspiring solution to unemployment by instilling a sense of entrepreneurship in young individuals. -a new enhanced methodology addressed to the youth workers was developed to cultivate entrepreneurship skills among young people. The updated approach guided practitioners in refining their knowledge and approach to entrepreneurship, providing a framework for introducing and applying entrepreneurial instruments in their daily work with young individuals. -one online platform (https://rbih.scoutsociety.ro/digital-hub/)-Digital Hub focused to offer young people from rural areas the basic tools and knowledge to start discovering entrepreneurship with information and resources from different fields such as:marketing, accountability, finance, networking, services and products, events and trainings, legal, business ethics, innovation, green practices in business, leadership - a new guide on how to conceive, establish and maintain a Rural Business Center (RBH), aimed at rural municipalities; With this comprehensive guide, city governments and local leaders will find a systematic way to harness the rich resources and talent in their rural communities. - 21 trained youth workers equipped with the necessary skills, knowledge and tools to work closely with the young people in rural areas that developed their entrepreneurial skills. -235 participants with fewer opportunities involved during the project lifetime -almost 80.000 persons reached with the dissemination activities -5 youth centers involved in the project as stakeholders -90 participants in the online conference and 30 in the face to face multiplier event -1 project website -https://rbih.scoutsociety.ro/