Young Female Entrepreneurs stepping into the Digital Age

Youth’s integration into the labor market faces serious challenges with young people aged 15-24 and especially young women, being strongly impacted by the economic crisis. In 2017, Eurostat report...

The motivation and potential for entrepreneurship that female entrepreneurs provide strongly contributes to socioeconomic growth. The EU's "Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan" emphasizes how important it is for entrepreneurship to serve as Europe's engine of growth, even though it will change cultural norms. When it comes to information, knowledge, and language proficiency, female entrepreneurs frequently experience higher failure rates than male entrepreneurs, even though their success rate is higher. Language obstacles, lack of management and marketing expertise, business support, and gender disadvantages are some of the obstacles that need to be overcome. Through the provision of the attitudes and abilities young entrepreneurs need to launch and expand their businesses, the OMEGA project was devoted to address these issues. The project improved young women's integration into the labor market by fostering international synergy to develop their digital skills. Youth workers, trainers, ICT specialists, and low-skilled or underprivileged women were among the target groups.

The series of activities implemented during the OMEGA project aimed at empowering young women entrepreneurs by enhancing their digital skills and understanding of digital culture, well-being, strategic marketing, and entrepreneurship. The partners developed and distributed surveys to identify the gaps in digital skills and cultural understanding among young women entrepreneurs. The collected data was analyzed and formed the basis of the Methodological Handbook (e-Book) "Young Women Entrepreneurs and Digital Culture". The e-Book was based on the research’s results and covered crucial topics including digital culture, digital tools and their application in entrepreneurship. This e-Book was pilot tested, evaluated and then translated in all the partners’ languages in order to be accessible. The ”Digital Well-Being” Curriculum was developed after the identification of the gaps in the current digital well-being training and was tailored to the needs of young women entrepreneurs. The curriculum was focused on safe internet use, digital health and protection against online threats. Instructions and materials were created to guide trainers in delivering the curriculum effectively. The curriculum, which aims to assist young women in their venture toward digital entrepreneurship, has been translated into the partners’ languages and made available online for use by organizations and individuals. The Online Seminar (e-Course) Curriculum "Basic Principles of Strategic Marketing" was developed by focusing on the basics of strategic marketing, including digital marketing strategies, web-based marketing and social media writing. The key aspects of the curriculum include digital branding, engagement and the integration of marketing with mobile technology. Partners collaborated on the content, applied feedback, and translated the final curriculum for wider use. One of the milestones of OMEGA was the development of the Serious Video Game for Digital Entrepreneurship Education. The serious game was designed and developed with the purpose of educating young women entrepreneurs on digital entrepreneurship. The game includes realistic virtual business scenarios using virtual and augmented reality tools. The game was tested and refined based on feedback to ensure it effectively engaged and educated users. The game was made available across various platforms (Desktop, Mobile, Web). The original proposal of the project included two youth workers training activities: C1)Digital Literacy for Young Female Entrepreneurs in Romania and C2)Virtual Business Management in Greece. After a rearrangement, the order in which the two activities were conducted was reversed. Hence, the "Virtual Business Management" in Greece was the first training that took place and the "Digital Literacy for Young Female Entrepreneurs" training in Romania followed. The Serious Video Game was tested and gained feedback in both training events. Each partner country held a Multiplier Event in order to present the project and its results.

The OMEGA project achieved the following results: -Methodological Handbook (e-Book) "Young Women Entrepreneurs and Digital Culture" development (PR1), the Online Seminar (e-Course) Curriculum "Digital Well-Being" (PR2), the Online Seminar (e-Course) Curriculum "Basic Principles of Strategic Marketing" (PR3) and the Serious Video Game for Digital Entrepreneurship Education (PR4). -Two Training Events: a) "Digital Literacy for Young Female Entrepreneurs" and b) "Virtual Business Management". Ιn the context of the emergence of 2022 in “European Year of Youth”, the learners, after the Trainings’ completion, became Digital Entrepreneurship Ambassadors, a fact that enables them to participate in this vision by using, under its umbrella, this Training as a Model to carry out their own trainings to young people. -OMEGA Awareness-Raising Campaign and 6 Multiplier Events were implemented to promote the project, its results and outcomes among youth workers and youth learners and other stakeholders. The OMEGA website hosts all the project's results, including the downloadable version of the serious video game (https://omega-project.eu/). Furthermore, a Facebook page was created for the dissemination of the project (https://www.facebook.com/share/EVrYTNEmD9A2Qgvn/).