The landscape

There is a fast transformation of the world as we know it into a digital world, and the economy into a digital economy. At the nexus of youth unemployment, the need to boost youth entrepreneurship, and the ongoing need for development of digital skills, start-ups seem to play a highly significant role, since they are vital drivers to the EU economy and European innovation, creating the most opportunities for employment, featuring highly innovative services or business models, striving at the same time for significant employee and sales growth (European Startup monitor, ESM 2016). Their innovative and disruptive nature, their optimistic make-up within a context of democratization of the business world, allowing for resources to be widely available, disconnecting entrepreneurship more than ever from capital, start-ups seem to be a young woman’s and man’s game, especially as facilitators of innovation at the social and economic level, as well as at the level of thinking of and doing business in novel ways.

The young (grossly 18-29), as the so called digital natives on the other hand, are considered to be multi-tasking, having a ‘cherry-picking’ approach in managing information, are serial consumers of digital media, connected in a world of social media, they adapt to constant change, are ‘gamers’ and disruptive considering the ‘corporate’ as unsophisticated and obsolete; a perfect profile that would otherwise fit excellently the entrepreneurial attitude and mind set needed, especially so, in the case of developing a start-up in a digital world. But this is not reflected in the real world.

Challenges & Needs

Several studies have shown that young people are not that tech-savvy as assumed, and are rather rudimentary digital technology users. A generic knowledge of how to use digital technologies, from the capacity to critically evaluate them, exploit them in a ‘wise’ manner towards goals other than everyday life and leisure are two different things.

Clearly, there is a growing need for ‘Lifestyle’ and ‘professional/workplace’ digital skills to be differently assessed, cross-examined and eventually exploited for optimal results at both ends. Being aware of the well-documented obstacles for strengthening youth entrepreneurship and unlocking the creative potential of the young (e.g. access to capital and financial sources, tax and regulation measures, lack of prior experience, self-confidence), it is imperative to focus on what young people (ages 18-29) have, rather than miss, and how in particular their profile as digital natives could be transformed from a set of rather unstructured digital skills, to targeted, well-informed, critically evaluated and deployed skills; a real professional asset responding to their roving eye and mindsets, so much resembling the entrepreneurial and start-up make-up.

The ZoomIn project

That is where ZoonIn project comes in. The project aims to provide startup support for the young, building on their digital natives’ profile as an asset, in order to create resources, come up with a start-up idea, create services and products and find solutions to problems.

More specifically, the project will develop a modular set of educational material and guidelines available in an online learning space, such as case studies, tests and assessment exercises, either for dedicated self-study or as an on-demand pool of tips and practices, that can offer knowledge on the spot, with respect to the Formation – Validation – Growth phases of a start-up and the respective digital skills and tools, for each of these phases, supporting both youth entrepreneurship and inclusion in the labour market, as well as digital skills enhancement across the EU.

More under RESULTS

Project objectives

More specifically, the project aims to facilitate:

• A more profound understanding of how digital skills and knowledge can be transformed into digital ‘wisdom’ for a young generation to excel in entrepreneurship and the start-up business model
• Digital skills specialization as coupled with entrepreneurial mindsets, through targeted training
• Deeper understanding and ability of young people to better handle their digital natives’ profiles within the scope of digital economy
• Provision of methodologies and flexible training provisions towards digital skills optimisation for entrepreneurial activation of the young and beyond them

The project serves up and spurs innovation in many ways. In particular, it will help young people, aspiring new start-uppers, as well as young people as ‘digital natives’ in general (18-29); students, as well as graduates in ICT and entrepreneurship:

• Know about their existing level (status) of knowledge and skills
• Know about unaddressed skills needs
• Gain awareness about challenges in specialisation of digital skills and knowledge
• Decode the intrinsic nature of start-up entrepreneurs, their characteristics and unique mindsets in the digital economy
• Gain awareness about existing specialised support schemes, training and certificates, including availability of digital training resources, their format and impact in these fields
• Capitalise on their creative mindsets to create market value
• Improve their entrepreneurial skills and enhance understanding of the stakes in business
• Better integrate creative and business skills
• Improve their digital skills
• Improve their multidisciplinary cooperation abilities
• Enter the labour market and even create jobs
• Learn how to network, cluster up and expand their business offering
• Change mindset, reframe perceptions as digital natives
• Enhance their understanding, visualize, familiarise (master) with the role and value of start-up entrepreneurship
• Spill over knowledge and know-how for digital skills training to other training, professional, sectoral and/ or geographical contexts

Furthermore, Zoomin will (indirectly) help youth associations in education and training; teachers and trainers in entrepreneurship and digital skills enhancement, as well as start-up ecosystems:

• Know about existing level (status) of knowledge and skills of target learners
• Know about unaddressed skills needs
• Gain awareness about challenges in acquiring skills and knowledge
• Decode the intrinsic nature of digital native entrepreneurs, their characteristics and unique mindsets
• Gain awareness about existing specialised support schemes, training and certificates, including availability of digital training resources, their format and impact in these fields
• Gain access to value learning and training materials, tools, techniques, methodologies
• Improve their service offering to target learners
• Support start-up market competitiveness and growth and spur innovation

Project target groups

The project targets mainly:

• Digital natives (young people / 18-29)
• Youth associations and youth entrepreneurship support bodies and organisations
• Skills Experts and VET trainers

It also targets Professionals’ associations in other fields, Youth associations in other fields, VET schools in entrepreneurship, Policy-makers in supporting youth entrepreneurship & digital skills empowerment & development and the society as a whole. If you belong to one of those target groups and would like to get involved to the project activities, register to receive our news and contact us.