3rd Newsletter of NewGenerationSkills project
June – December 2018

THE PROJECT NEWGENERATIONSKILLS HAS REACHED ANOTHER MILESTONE

The programs of the innovation labs were launched in the autumn 2018 in seven European cities, with great anticipation and enthusiasm from their founders. The training sessions and their accompanying events have searched for answers for important questions of the modern world, such as ’’How will an exciting business idea become a profitable business model?”’ or ”How can young people benefit from their existing technological skills on the labour market?’” “Why should we address local social problems and are we able to solve them?’”.  Hereby the toplines of the reports from the innovation lab and the results achieved so far are presented in the seven cities participating in the project.

BELGRADE

The innovation lab in Belgrade opened its doors in December 2018. The new community space is intended to support open, young people with entrepreneurial intentions, in order to stimulate and develop innovation ideas and to make better use of the creative potential of the youth and to develop their sense of social responsibility. In addition to supporting interdisciplinary synergies, the Belgrade innovation lab, in close cooperation with the municipality of Stari Grad, organises educational programs, brainstormings and meetings aimed at training and increasing the capacity of the youth. It provides mentoring, business consultancy and other activities aimed at strengthening the communication, cooperation and leadership skills for young people.

GRAZ

Based on the experience of the local Youth Agenda, in Graz the high school age group, youth between 15-19 years, is targeted with the aim to make them understand the importance of social enterprises, improvements of innovative competitiveness and development of new growth tendencies. The Youth Innovation Space, as a new initiative of the IBOBB Café, successfully stimulates and reinforces young people to recognise social innovation and social entrepreneurship as a career potential, and encourages them to embark on a startup venture. The five community events organised to date focus on the themes of green tech and human tech and nutrition. Identifying good habits and role models could bring the business sector closer to young people, particularly in services, where the focus is increasingly on girls and women.Their forums focus on the diversity of young people's potential, talents and the benefits of an integrated culture of failure. The best ideas will be further developed within the framework of a one-day workshop program and awarded by the Youth Innovation Prize in Graz.

CLUJ-NAPOCA

The lab in Cluj-Napoca supports young people to learn more about the experiences of entrepreneurs and at the same time to put their own ideas into action. They organise meetings with experts and successful company owners; provide information on existing business development programmes; help to make innovative ideas and firms/public administration find each other; offer consultancy on marketing rules and regulations regarding intellectual property rights; organize networking events with the innovation stakeholders at both local and international level. So far they have organised four training modules and one pitching session in the lab: “How to build an innovative team and how to develop an idea into a sustainable business model? “ They have been looking for answers to similar questions. The focus is on topics of sales and marketing and the participating young people had the chance to present their business plans. The Youth with five best plans could participate in the International Youth Camp in Belgrade in June

LIBEREC

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The innovation lab in the Liberec region, the Czech Republic, targets advancing of skills of youth in 2 core areas - digital as well as entrepreneurial. The unique opportunity of learning how to design and print in 3D, how to work with IoT (Internet of Things) tools and how to transfer digital technology skills into entrepreneurial activities will boost to the Liberec regional innovation support – primarily for university students and students of high schools to help raise new innovative solutions. Business ideas will be further supported through individual mentoring and further support from other regional ecosystem partners. “The education system lacks behind in teaching how to work with new technologies. With the introduction of desktop 3D printers and IoT kits, multiple opportunities exist how to transfer digital technology knowledge into new entrepreneurial activities. We are really looking forward to see which ideas students will come up with and where it will end”, says Michal Štefan, Communication Manager of DEX Innovation Centre in the Czech Republic.

MARIBOR

The social innovation lab for Youth in Maribor named FEJS(T)SPEJS was launched in September 2018. As a part of the innovation lab set up and communication campaign activities, regular community and networking events have been organized to reach out to the youth and inspire them and also to invite them to participate in the Dynamic Learning Package. An inspiring conversation with young entrepreneur Microbrewery was organized, where he presented his entrepreneurial path from the idea to his own company. He also educated participating youth about different types of beer and offered some samples for tasting. Other networking events were also implemented in which the project activities were presented and young people were invited to the innovation lab activities. The events were: The political participation of young people; Meet & Greet with social entrepreneurs from foreign countries; Social innovation, social economics and social entrepreneurship; Precarious work.

SOFIA

For the first month after its official launch, Sofia Youth innovation lab hosted more than 15 events including special trainings on innovations, entrepreneurship and social causes. The Sofia innovation lab network expanded with more than 180 students, teachers, representatives of businesses and NGOs, researchers, human rights activists, social entrepreneurs, IT specialists, who not only actively participated but also co-designed the activities. New partnerships were established during the implementation of the program with organisations such as UNICEF, Bulgarian Nuclear Association, IEEE Young professionalists, Game Dev Summit, Sofia Youth Consultative Council. Innovative funding mechanisms for social causes and projects, the use of open data to develop a project, the way from prototype to market products, edutainment were among the areas covered. The Sofia lab agenda buzzes with activities until the end of year and planning for 2019 is already in progress!

ÚJBUDA

The Hungarian innovation lab has a double impact on the future of young people: it provides a portfolio of services and can be used as a solid physical base linked to a particular location. The lab seeks to actively and continually keep in touch with secondary school and university students, and pays attention to their needs and interests. The municipality of Újbuda, which started the lab, is the coordinator between the academic, business and civil sectors, and aimes to help find the best combination of them. The overall goal is to provide services on career advicing through personalised methods, mentoring, guidance from the world of work with involving professionals. Their slogan is ’’Use your skills and find your own place!’’. Besides all this, the lab has a special mission: To define and identify local social issues and challenges. With the help of the local Dynamic Learning Package, groups of young people have been working on several exciting projects for months. They aim to find solutions in order to improve their environment, the everyday life of the present and the future. Their ideas were measured against each other in front of the audience: 8 projects had been created, 3 of which were tried in the local startup competiton’s final round, where 2 student projects could take the first prize, each received a prize of one million HUF.