Entrepreneurial mindset development within youth sector

ENT-MINDCurrent and future trends for an entrepreneurial society

Texts written and collected by:

Silja Suntola, South-Eastern University of Applied Sciences, XAMK (Finland)

Renāte Lukjanska, SIC - Social innovation centre (Latvia)

Beata Lavrinoviča, SIC - Social innovation centre (Latvia)

Rasa Žilionė, VšĮ Inovacijų biuras / Innovation Office (Lithuania)

Līva Stūrmane, New Entrepreneur’s Centre “Jobs & Society” (Latvia)

Louise Weinreder, 4progress (Sweden)

Charlotte H. Carlmark, 4progress (Sweden)

Cover photo:

pexels.com

Photos:

pexels.com (https://www.pexels.com/photo-license/)

Graphic design:

Petri Hurme, Vinkeä Design Oy

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ContentsIntroduction 4

General overview of current situation 5

Overviews, challenges and best practices 7

Methodology of the research 7

General overview of entrepreneurial activities and support organizations in Sweden 10

General overview of entrepreneurial activities and support organizations in Finland 19

General overview of entrepreneurial activities and support organizations in Lithuania 29

General overview of entrepreneurial activities and support organizations in Latvia 35

General overview of entrepreneurial activities and support organizations in Estonia 46

Success stories 50

Results of online questionnaire 64

Voice of educators and developers – Focus groups 73

Conclusions & suggestions for actions 77

Appendix 82

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become a rising interest for many young entrepreneurs. It is also a form of entrepreneurship that attracts the creative entrepreneurs. They are in it for the will to do something good in the world! We are firm believers, that as the industry is moving to low cost countries, many traditional jobs are lost, robots and artificial intelligence are firing this trend along with the huge impacts of digitalization.

IntroductionEntrepreneurship has been high on the agenda in

the strategies of most countries. It has quickly been integrated into education, culture and innovation as well as those concerning employment and economy. New programs have been developed, networks and different kinds of platforms launched. At the same time, entrepreneurship pedagogy has been discussed, researched and developed. Social entrepreneurship has

Traditional entrepreneurship training has leaned much on teaching the technical sides of running ones business. It has reflected the thoughts of the industry- based society and high-growth entrepreneurship. In this new era – we need entrepreneurial thinking not just from that perspective, but in any way people can add value to our communities, regions and in the end the world.

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It all starts with a question: What do you want to be when you grow up? The answer of many children

are occupations such as policemen, firefighters, and veterinarians. When they grow older, the answer changes towards areas like marketing, design and engineering. But one answer is rarely included at any stage- entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurship has an important role to play when it comes to the economic growth in the Baltic Sea Region. Entrepreneurs create business, businesses create jobs and jobs create customers to the businesses.

More and more jobs are created by entrepreneurs, start-ups and SME’s. The EUSBSR emphasises that “talents with entrepreneurial mind-sets need to be

General overview of current situationtraced early in school, their interest and ability for business needs to be supported and encouraged throughout their educations towards new compa-nies or entrepreneurial development in existing ones. Entrepreneurial skills need to be fostered at all levels of education”*.

But how do we foster, inspire and empower youth to be innovative, to be entrepreneurs?

‘‘…is about learners developing the skills and mind-set to be able to turn creative ideas into entrepreneurial action. This is a key competence for all learners, supporting

* European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea

Region ACTION PLAN {COM(2009) 248}, p 79

personal development, active citizenship, social inclu-sion and employability. It is relevant across the lifelong learning process, in all disciplines of learning and to all forms of education and training (formal, non-formal and informal) which contribute to an entrepreneurial spirit or behaviour, with or without a commercial objective’’**

Thanks to the possibilities created via internet, the barriers to creating businesses are now much lower and the nature of the business have changed, giving young entrepreneurs advantage in many industries. With different role models, like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, the acceptance and under-standing of the possibilities with entrepreneurship

** European Commission 2012

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is changing, but the young entrepreneurs still face challenges when starting their own businesses, such as access to funding, knowledge, education/training and networking opportunities.

In our region there is wide interest in entrepreneur-ship as a way to solve emerging societal challenges such as unemployment and by fostering entrepre-neurship so more people will be encouraged to start their own businesses, name social entrepreneurship is also one of emerging trends. The way of this fos-tering defers in some aspects between the project partner countries, but there are common approaches. The worldwide Junior Achievement programme is the most renowned. Founded in 2001, JA works with the education and business communities as well as governments to provide young people from primary school to university with experiences that build the skills and competences they will need to succeed in a global economy. In 2017, the result of the work within JA Europe* is as follows:

* http://www.jaeurope.org

The JA programme has up till now supported between 30,000–60,000 young people/project partner country (Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden**)/year, thus forming a common nominator in our region in regard to the approach towards enhancing the entrepreneurship among young people, but unfor-tunately the age group of their focus is mainly sec-ondary school.

The programme does not approach all necessary, national aspects in each country and there is also need for local initiatives in each country, which will be further presented in the following pages.

** http://www.ja.ee/

http://nuoriyrittajyys.fi/en/

http://www.jal.lv/news

http://www.lja.lt/

https://ungforetagsamhet.se/

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Overviews, challenges and best practicesAll partners have shared their views, expert net-

works and knowledge to get extensive overview of different aspects related to entrepreneurial youth. From strategic points of view both ‘’good’’ and ‘’bad’’ examples as well as success stories are important. To collect the ‘’discussion within society’’ and current knowledge that goes on in order to grab the possibili-ties and deal with the challenges regarding changing systems, along with the change of values, different methods have been used - content analysis, online ques-tionnaire, focus groups to get best possible overview.

There was a lot of common perspectives and views regarding the information collected. Even if we know

many of the challenges regarding data collection, definitions, evaluating as well as education and sup-port systems – it was incredibly valuable to collect this different kinds of data and stories along. They give a valuable overview of trends, challenges and possibilities. As a special remark, it has to be admit-ted that inputs from Estonia are covered at a smaller amount, since there was no official partner from Estonia. However, such important element as online questionnaire with primary data set still has been arranged, as well as content analysis on the overview and success stories.

Methodology of the research

Objectives and issues of research

The “Entrepreneurial mindset development within youth sector” project team undertook to provide an overview of the relevant and up to date situation in the field of youth perception about support for entre-preneurship in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Sweden. In exploring the level of support towards entrepreneurship in youth sector, the online question-naire has been concentrated on following objectives:

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Objective 1: get overall country review about entre-preneurial ecosystem and available support and best cases;

Objective 2: organise focus groups to understand patterns of entrepreneurial support

Objective 3: survey target group aged 15-30 to gain an understanding of target group’s perception regarding entrepreneurial support.

Methods and techniques

The research was based on two main research methods and use of secondary and primary data. Secondary data has been used in content analysis to analyse country specific situation, while online questionnaire among target group has been used to collect primary data.

Content analysis: The content analysis was based on available national and local documents, legis-lations, and reports about the condition of support mechanisms and relevant tools, events and activities

in particular countries. Content analysis is a com-monly used qualitative research method that can be effectively employed to analyse a body of text. Through content analysis, elements of a body of text are assessed empirically to establish and document specific aspects of their characteristics and the rela-tions among them. Elements of content analysis can include words, idioms, sentences, paragraphs, arti-cles, or entire papers and reports. Based on a spe-cific sequence of steps, content analysis allows the researcher meaningfully interpret the content pre-sented to make inferences about the patterns of the content within specific elements of a given text. The experiences of the project partners as well as involve-ment of volunteers and relevant stakeholders, has been accomplished to gather wide scope of infor-mation related statistical and qualitative data. The gained results were then filtered according to the relevance of the given title or abstract and whether or not the subjects of articles found in the search were related to the nature of the study. Final filtering and structuring was made by lead partner from Finland.

References cited within the various documents have been checked. Specifically, we sought to identify case studies of young entrepreneurs and analyses of organisations that seek to encourage youth in entre-preneurial activities. In majority of cases, data and information from not earlier as of year 2010 has been used. The role of content analysis is to identify general trends in country within general support of entre-preneurship, identifies good practices and inspire by successful cases.

Online questionnaire: Largely because of the diffi-culty in reaching young people through traditional telephone techniques or other forms, a decision was made to rely on the web based approach as the pre-ferred method of questionnaire administration. The questionnaire is divided into three thematic sets. First set of questions is related to the characteristics of a sample set and consists of demographic data. The second part of the questionnaire researches entrepre-neurial mindset perception and personal attributes to become an entrepreneur. The last part examines what is the level of support and different activities

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related to encouragement and start of entrepreneur-ship in the respective country. The foundation of the questionnaire was originally developed by Latvian partner Social innovation centre and during review and discussion process relevant correction imple-mented from the partners.

The next stage of development of the online version was started as soon as final version was agreed.

During this stage, several online tools were reviewed and the best option was selected on typeform.com. This specific online questionnaire tool was chosen due to its attractive design, that is an important element for the youth target group. After the online version was completed it was tested with partnering organ-isations. Feedback was collected and proper adjust-ments were made, to make sure that the questions appeared in the designated order, that there were no clerical errors, and that the logic and flow of the questionnaire worked properly under all branching conditions. Some technicalities were improved at this stage, before final distribution was started. The

first day of distribution was 5 of December, 2017 with initial period of collection for one month with possi-ble prolonging up to two months, if minimal amount relevant to the quantitative data analysis would not be reached. Minimum amount was defined based on the theory, which states that the sample is a subset of the population (Sekaran & Bougie, 2010, p.263). In literature, there exist several methods for determin-ing the sample size. Hair et al., (2010) regards five respondents per variable to be analyzed as the lower limit. Roscoe (1975) proposed the rules of thumb (as cited in Sekaran and Bougie, 2010, pp. 296–297) such as that sample size larger than 30 and less than 500 are appropriate.

Sample set. When selecting respondents, a systematic random sampling method was used. It was deter-mined by geographic location and age group as main characteristics for respondents.

Majority of partners have reached minimal amounts already during first month, however, for some part-ners it took a bit longer to accomplish the task and

completion of online questionnaire from the point of view of online collection was accomplished on 22 of January, 2018.

The survey was in English, assuming that youth now-adays have a sufficient level of English knowledge and no translations were made for any country.

An attractive poster was created to draw attention for use in social media. The questionnaire was posted on partners’ web pages, Facebook (see example), and Twitter as well as direct contacts were established with youth non-governmental organisations, uni-versities, schools and other institutions involved in the work with youth. In case of some partners, initial information was collected in paper form and final replies entered in the typeform manually.

For instance, in Latvia questionnaire reached over 5,000 people, in Lithuania – over 3,000 young people. A plain text version of the final questionnaire is found in the Appendix and questionnaire can be found at: https://socinnlv.typeform.com/to/eMIXEp

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“Entrepreneurship is about developing new ideas and turning these ideas into value creation. The

value can be created in companies, in public and in the community” ... “Education in Entrepreneurship should help young people develop the skills required to start and run companies. Entrepreneurship educa-tion can also help stimulate young people’s creativity and creativity.“ (From the Swedish Government’s Entrepreneurship Strategy in Education)

Junior Achievement Sweden, a non-profit organisa-tion, is the main educational programme for entre-

preneurship among young people in Sweden. The organisation is educating young people in elementary school as well as senior high school and is funded mainly with public funding. The JA Sweden reaches out to a large number of youngsters, but the sheer size of this organisation and its geographical deployment in combination with the public funding, makes it hard for other organisations in Sweden to build up their own entrepreneurship educational activities for young people. These organisations are mainly funded by project funding (limited in time) and/or regional funding (limited geographical).

Ung Företagsamhet – UF (Young Entrepreneurship/Junior Achievement)*

Junior Achievement Sweden provides educational pro-grams in entrepreneurship for students in elementary school and high school. The programs are designed to stimulate creativity and entrepreneurship and to give students insight into business conditions.

The philosophy of Junior Achievement Sweden is that entrepreneurship can be taught.

* https://ungforetagsamhet.se/

General overview of entrepreneurial activities and support organizations in Sweden

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JA Sweden in elementary school

JA Sweden also provides education in elementary school; "Our community", , ”See your possibilities” and ”My Future and Economics for success". The edu-cation is suitable from primary to upper secondary and prepare the students on a basic level for a life as an entrepreneur or having their own companies.

JA Sweden in high school

Junior Achievement Sweden’s most recognized edu-cational program is called the Company Program (UF-företagande). The Company Program provides high school students the opportunity to start and run a business during an academic year.

Our research shows that students within the company program are more likely to start their own companies,

earn more money and are more likely to become man-agers. The Company Program make a difference in so many ways. Fact Sheet, Company Program 2017/2018

JA Sweden Alumni

Junior Achievement Sweden launched an alumni network in 2010 to continue to stimulate entrepre-neurship among former students and allow young entrepreneurs to share their experiences. Today, the network consists of more than 3400 alumni who meet regularly throughout the year at educational workshops and meetings.

Research studies

Karl Wennberg, PhD, Stockholm School of Economics, Center for Entrepreneurship, has released two studies

on Junior Achievement Sweden Company Program graduates.

The study shows that Company Program graduates have lower unemployment, starts companies, become managers and earn more money than persons with-out Company Program experience. The companies started by Company Program alumnis had higher revenue, employed more people and lasted longer.

The study shows that entrepreneurship training plays an important role in these graduates lives and careers. Junior Achievement Sweden is important for the continued entrepreneurial development of Sweden. They offer Research Studies and a Com-pany Program.

At high school, the number of students who run UF

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companies increases every year. The graph shows developments over the past 20 years.

In the licentiate thesis, “What and How Students Perceive They Learn When Doing Mini-Companies in the Upper Secondary School”* from 2017, scientist Steven Hunter Lindqvist finds that the UF company also develops abilities that not only concern entre-preneurship. Collaboration, oral communication, planning, responsibility and self-esteem are skills that most students in the study say they develop during their UF year

UF also arrange Swedish Championship in Young Entrepreneuship. Last year 250 UF companies

* Enclosed in the folder

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could present themselves during two days: https://ungforetagsamhet.se/gymnasium/massor-och-tavlingar

Pictures from SM in Young Entrepreneurship Sweden 2017: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ufsverige/sets/72157683325322375/with/35047866765/

Young social Entrepreneurs*

What they do and what they want

Young Social Entrepreneurs support teachers and school leaders to work on sustainable development through entrepreneurial learning. They offer lectures, work-

* https://ungasocialaentreprenorer.se/

shops, educational programs and an educational mate-rial. They invite the teacher's bubble, where the teacher's commitment and mission are put to the center. They also hope that their blog can be a support and provide inspiration and tips. They see enormous potential in their children and adolescents to develop into respon-sible and independent individuals who are responsible for and safeguarding a sustainable future for all.

They see the school as an arena where experts from all disciplines join together and give students the knowl-edge and tools they need to reach it. They offer support and inspiration to these experts – the teachers.

Why learners?

The school is a fantastic platform with the opportunity to change the world. At school, their children and ado-

lescents meet a wide range of experts in all different sub-jects, every day. Here are also the best project managers. Teachers plan, implement and evaluate multiple projects at the same time, and lead hundreds of individuals, each semester, each year. These are the teachers they want to turn to and utilize their knowledge, dedication and power. By focusing on the teachers, they also focus on the children and young people. Changes do not take place through temporary actions, demands and even more workload. Should there be changes, it should be done on the teacher's terms. If the school is to become a place where community engagement, innovation and creativity thrive, teachers must have the time and the opportunity to inspire, engage and handle. Young Social Entrepreneurs want to help teachers spread commu-nity engagement by giving them support, inspiration and concrete tips and materials tailored to the school's courses, structure and conditions. They are the teachers

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and social entrepreneurs who want to contribute to a better future for their children and young people. More info: https://www.businessregiongoteborg.se/sv/kontext/fett-mode-tar-plats-i-ingenjorens-verkstad

Challenge to find the right in the support-jungle

“When I do not even work for sixteen years, even half of all actors can imagine what challenge it is for a Gothenburg to find the right one.

Mariah Ben Salem Dynehäll is one of the initiators of the Yesbox initiative in Gamlestaden. As CEO of the Greenhouse in Gothenburg, she has seen how diffi-cult it has been to look into the jungle of advisors and support actors who meet a new entrepreneur.

- Someone has stated that there are more than 130 different actors working in different ways with entre-preneurship and innovation in the Gothenburg area. Some are superlocal, some regional and some national.

“It became so clear that the pipes must be replaced by cross-border cooperation so that it will really be value creation for the Göteborgs.

In the newly launched Yesbox in GamlestadensFab-riker, work with support for entrepreneurs and inno-vators will be more effective. It becomes easier for those seeking advice and support to find the right person or organization when many are under the same roof. In the long run, it will increase the start-ups of companies to survive and develop in the long term.

“Most people do not even know that there is any sup-port to get. Those who come on a business idea go to family and friends who have experience. But there are studies showing that if you get help, the survival rate increases significantly,“ says Mariah Ben Salem Dyne-häll, surrounded by visitors, colleagues and craftsmen who clearly fix the last thing in the premises.

First, it is about making visible that there is help to get, she argues. Then it’s going to pilot people with different ideas to the right level in the support system. Because there is no need to see different organizations as competitors.

“It is incredibly important that we do not create com-petition between the different players. For example, it is not possible to rent a desk at Yesbox. You can do that in private options.

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“But those in early project phases are at home and risk losing motivation because they are not in a context, they can hang here for free.

For those who work with advice, Yesbox also gets a lift. Suddenly there are many colleagues gathered in the same place. It will be easier and more fun to collaborate.

“There is no difference if I come to Yesbox and meet Dejan from Business Region Gothenburg or Anna from my own business. We get completely different conversations and come up with ideas. It will really work together. Prestige and boundaries disappear.

Changemaker Camp*

Raoul Wallenberg Academy and Ashoka together annually organize Changemaker Camp – a program for those who want tools and inspiration to improve

* http://raoulwallenberg.se/utbildning/bootcamp/

what they think needs to change in society and get a larger network of committed people who support others from idea to action. During the program the participants will try to make a difference in practice, learn more about social entrepreneurship and develop their personal leadership. Changemaker camp is open for those who have recently moved to Sweden and for those who have grown up her.

After Changemaker camp it's time to start acting within what the participants are passionate about! To realize an idea or run a project requires both endur-ance, courage and creativity. In order to maintain motivation, even when encountering adversities, a peeking network is very helpful. That's why they participate in the month of coaching in the fall where they, together with other young changemakers, jointly develop their social entrepreneurship and meet excit-ing inspirators! They will also receive a mentor that supports them during the trip with their idea and a guide where Changemaker Camp have collected their best advice and tools that they know from experience that social entrepreneurs need to succeed.

Changemaker camp is completely free of charge in opposition to attend all matches. No prerequisites required, just a burning desire to change and want to meet new people!

Social initiative**

Social Initiative provides support to young social entrepreneurs from the Middle East and North Africa. Now it’s time for us to coach young female social entre-preneurs from the Middle East and North Africa, in the Swedish Institute’s “She Entrepreneurs” program.

The program extends over a year where partici-pants meet each other for ten days in Sweden and six months later for a week in the MENA region. Entrepreneurs get tools to develop a sustainable development project in their country or region. During the year, they also receive regular mento-ring coaching. In Sweden, participants also meet

** http://www.socialinitiative.se/aktuellt/social-

initiative-utbildar-sociala-entreprenorer

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Swedish organizations, leading entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs.

Social Initiative Founder Pernilla and Caroline share their own experiences as entrepreneurs, teach in fol-low-up methods and coach a group of participants.

Young Entrepreneurs of Sweden, YEoS, is an orga-nization run by its members.

The purpose of YEoS is to support young entre-preneurship in Sweden. They enable exchange and create platforms for young entrepreneurs to exchange knowledge and experience, develop, become inspired and solve problems together. Each year, three larger events are coordinated: SkiWeek, the yearly congress and x-change, as well as a number of smaller events and regularly occurring

seminars. By electing the most driven young entre-preneurs in Sweden and mixing business with plea-sure, they have created a network that promotes exchange and facilitates meetings, conversations and mutual assistance. They are the only network that focuses on the entrepreneur rather than the industry you are active in.

YEoS promotes entrepreneurship and supports young people by:

1. Creating a rewarding context for young entrepreneurs where they can build relations with likeminded: relations that might be crucial for their success.

2. Enabling an exchange of knowledge for our members, giving them profitable offers and support in their own business through handpicked partners.

3. Providing our members opportunities to get in contact with mentors and investors.

4. Organizing yearly inspirational events and continuous meet-ups where networking is made easy.

5. Enabling an open and effective dialogue between members through our social channels.

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CONTACT

Louise von Rosen, Operations coordinator

Cellphone: +46 70 741 36 81, Mail: louise.von.rosen@yeos.se

18 SWOT – analysis: Sweden

Strengths

The spread of JA (Junior Achievement) activities in the high school = reaches large number of young people

There are some other programmes, limited geographical and thus focusing on local conditions

Weaknesses

The dominance of the publicly funded JA in Sweden makes it difficult for other organisations to start programmes for young entrepreneurs, the “market” isn t big enoughOther programmes for young entrepreneurship are mainly funded by project funding, thus in itself limited in time.The entrepreneurial programmes are, according to the youngsters, lacking in the “soft skills” of the entrepreneurship

Opportunities

The geographical spread of JA (Junior Achievement) activities in the high school = enables a rising interest for/knowledge about entrepreneurship among young people

The existing, more “technically oriented” programmes, can easily be supplemented with parts that focus

on “soft skills”, like networking etc. and thus enable quite comprehensive entrepreneurial programmes.

Threats

The dominance of the publicly funded JA in Sweden, with a growing organisation, can cause a sluggish and perhaps even stagnant organisation that cannot follow the development in the field

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There have been a number studies and development programs running from entrepreneurial research,

education, practical coaches, teachers as well as the third sector, furthering what we often call as Creative Entrepreneurship. Hubs, accelerators and well-known networks for entrepreneurially interested youths.

The Finnish studies and research on the theme is closely in line with that in the Nordic and Baltic coun-tries. In Finland innovation/entrepreneurship fund-ing is steered much through Tekes (Finnish Innovation

Fund), if we don’t calculate the funds that are tar-geted directly as seed money for individual start-up companies. Tekes has recently also steered funding to further businesses, management and leadership competencies as well as new forms of doing busi-ness. However, its history lies strongly behind the idea of “high-tech=innovation”. One aim in Finland has been to bend the existing instruments to match changing needs, instead of creating new ones. For instance Finland has been rather successful in using the European Social Fund to furthering new kinds of

entrepreneurship, third sector co-operation as well as the creative industries. The first ESF program (led by Ministry of Education and Culture, as well as the Ministry of Employment and Economy) was launched in 2006, with Creative Industries Finland as coordi-nator. Over 30 national projects were funded from the program. The aims set have been further developed in the new program period with programs mainly through two programs, coordinated by Creative and Inclusive Finland.

General overview of entrepreneurial activities and support organizations in Finland

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A view to the new economy and networked entrepreneurship by ErkkiAutio and Team

Former study by Aalto University specialists and pro-fessor Erkko Aitio have done an extensive publications on networked economy and new forms of entrepre-neurship, full publication at: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/12444/isbn9789526055572.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

“Currently there is wide interest in entrepreneur-ship as a way to solve emerging societal challenges such as unemployment. Consequently, various policy measures have been implemented in Finland and elsewhere to support the early development of new innovative firms.

This report presents various analyses of the Finnish high-growth entrepreneurship ecosystem from policy viewpoint. The aim is to provide empirical data to sup-port the design and implementation of high-growth entrepreneurship policy in Finland.

From the Finnish entrepreneurship policy interven-tions we consider the ‘NIY Programme’of the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation and Development and the ‘VIGO Programme’ of the Ministry of Labour and Economy’ as well as the ‘Bridge Programme’ of Nokia Corporation.Additionally, a theoretical framing of the relationship between high-growth entrepreneurshi-pand its national context through the conceptual lens of ‘National System of Entrepreneurship’is provided.“

“The results of our analyses provide support for the efficiency of the interventions analysed. It seems

that the NIY Programme and VIGO Programme have helped new innovative and growth oriented firms to strengthen their early development in comparison to their unsupported counterparts. Moreover, the Bridge Programme can be seen as a useful model for any company facing a need to lay off employees and seeking to implement the layoffs consistent with its commitment to corporate social responsibility.”

CENTRES – Creative Entrepreneurship in schools*

The CENTRES EU-project was led by British Council, in co-operation with Aalto School of BIZ (responsible for delivering the policy recommendations).

* https://www.britishcouncil.pl/en/

programmes/arts/centres

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As part of the policy recommendations, integrating creative approaches for entrepreneurship training in schools was studies from the policy perspective, some main findings being:

1. The implications of this “creative age” needs to be recognized horizontally, operating across different policies (i.e. education and culture, employment and economy as well as innovation). For example, we need computer programmers to engage creative entrepreneurial skills if we are to grow the software and games sector to its potential.

2. We also need to build the competencies which allow creative and management skills to converge. Most of all, we need an

approach that positions creativity and creative entrepreneurship as delivering value across the education landscape – improving attainment and achievement, equipping young people with life skills and business skills, and engendering positive outcomes such as collaborative values, risk-taking and self-initiative.

3. In accordance with the policy recommendations in the Guide to Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (p. 32), we need: “Policies to ensure a proper supply and mix of skills; existence and coverage of training on entrepreneurship and creative problem-solving; autonomy and transparency of education and research organisations; existence of policies to support the regular and long-term collaboration of education

and research organisations with businesses; explicit consideration of the role of Key Enabling Technologies (KETs)."

4. There is a need for a range of specific policy instruments with an emphasis on creative entrepreneurship – focusing on long-term programmes (rather than singular projects) that build links between the creative industries and schools (e.g. via work related learning, apprenticeships and the co-design of curricula); and which leverage creativity to generate a stronger skills base in communication, collaboration, management and the translation of ideas and content into business. There is also a need for accreditation in creative entrepreneurship as part of a creative entrepreneurship curriculum.

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5. Digitally-enabled creative entrepreneurship programmes that combine the application and interpretation of digital technology and encourage young people to explore the boundaries of technology to go beyond being mere “users.” This should be informed by genuine industry partnership – with creative technology firms working closely with schools to develop bespoke solutions that enhance creative learning and build competency and skills in relevant areas.

6. Formal and informal entrepreneurial education should become an important and compulsory part of every member state’s educational system. Every secondary school student should participate in at least one informal entrepreneurship educational programme

(e.g. a mini-company programme, such as CENTRUM’s start-up programme, Aflatun). Dedicated creative entrepreneurship facilities such as incubators, talent development projects, R&D with industry partners should be set up in educational settings. Creative Enterprise curricula offering structured learning and accreditation would also help to raise the life chances of young people across Europe.

Creada – a leap to creative entrepreneurship

The Creada program was an ESF-funded coaching program aimed specifically for creative industries actors, free-lancers and start-ups. It took place between 2008 - 2010 at Adulta and later on at Aalto University, Small Business Center.

The basic rationale behind the program was that cre-ative people have a strong sense of internal entrepre-neurship. Coaching was chosen as the main method for leading participants to think entrepreneurially, and turn the internal force to external entrepreneurial energy. The tight bonds within the group were a cen-tral element in the success of the program. Heteroge-neity within the group was also an important added value. There were start-ups as well as established entrepreneurs from different fields of the creative industry that worked together.

In the beginning of the program there was much time spent in working on group dynamics and building trust among each other. Coaching was offered through 8 1–2 day sessions in the program. The participants got acquinted with literature in between the sessions with the help of a personal coach. “I saw the open

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interaction and trust between the coaches and par-ticipants to be extremely important”, comments the head of the program Markku Uitto.

Project-oriented learning is at its best when feeding off from all members of the project teams. It enables getting open feed-back on your own thinking, behav-ior and ways of operating. Through these kind of reflections the participants automatically modifies his former perceptions, which again results in learning.

There were all together 78 participants, of which 55 completed the requirements for a secondary level degree in entrepreneurship, and 4 who completed special secondary degree in international manage-ment and development. During the program 14 new enterprises were founded.

International Design Business Management (IDBM) program*

The IDBM master program is a joint offering between the Aalto University School of Art, Design and Archi-tecture, School of Science and School of Business. It comprises international and multidisciplinary courses accompanied by a year long industry project in col-laboration with companies from all over the world. Since 1995, the program has delivered world-class multidisciplinary and systemic research as well as learning in global business development through design and technology. The aim is to educate global producers and leaders of innovation in new prod-uct, service and business development. The program builds on the premise that new wealth, meaningful social innovation and solutions are increasingly cre-

* https://www.idbm.aalto.fi/

ated in the spaces between disciplines and thus there is a need to educate interdisciplinary professionals.

The IDBM is offered both as a two-year, full-time Mas-ter’s degree program or alternatively as a two-semes-ter-long minor studies package. The program builds on the business, design and technology knowledge and competence achieved through previous stud-ies, enabling students to make full use of their own potential and knowledge as members of interdisci-plinary teams within project-based work. An inte-gral part of the offering, IDBM related research aims to transfer the latest academic research into teach-ing and industry practice. Currently, the research is constructed around the main areas of design man-agement, integrated multi- and interdisciplinary processes in design, business and technology, and design for brand and product identity.

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The core offering of the program includes a learn-ing-by-doing industry project, embedding both practice and project based learning, with a real-life business enterprise setting, with small (4–5 student) multidisciplinary teams that are balanced in terms of business, design and engineering students, coached by multidisciplinary faculty and expert industry tutors. The student teams develop new products, services and business concepts for the IDBM industry partners. Since 1995, the IDBM program has completed over 150 successful projects for over a 100 leading Finnish and international companies and organizations. The projects have been mainly open-ended, seeking for new solutions from a wide perspective and often using new technologies, knowledge and materials. The IDBM Partners in the past have included multinational enterprises, Finnish internationally operating com-panies, global and local social-enterprises and organi-

zations and globally-oriented start-ups. The industry projects may deal with customer, market and user needs and design-driven innovation, developing new business, product, service and communication ideas, insights, models, concepts and identities. The intel-lectual property belongs to the sponsoring company, and on need the projects may have non-disclosure agreements. The cost of the project for the company is €20.000 + VAT. Specialized seminars, workshops, research and studies may also be developed around the projects on need.

Ritual pedagogy – focusing on developing entrepreneurs as human actors

Outi Hägg*

Traditionally entrepreneurial training has focused on developing enterprises, not entrepreneurs as human actors. Until recently, entrepreneurship has neglected

* Hägg, O. 2011. Yrittäjyysvalmennus ja

yrittäjäidentiteetti. Academic Dissertation. University

of Tampere. Acta Universitatis Tamperensis 1618.

Hägg, O. 2012. EURAM2012 12 th Conference: Social

Innovation for Competitiveness, Organizational

Performance and Human Excellence, Erasmus

University, School of Management, Rotterdam, The

Netherlands. 6.–8. 6.2012. Article Ritual pedagogy in

Entrepreneurial Identity Development (full paper).

25

the person while emphasizing the substance. Entre-preneurship has been seen more as an economic than a human and cultural phenomenon. This view has so far motivated entrepreneurial training, which has been dominated by the economic paradigm. There-fore the discussions on entrepreneurial identity as also the factors of identity development have been little studied in the context of entrepreneurial train-ing. However, entrepreneurial training is gradually becoming aware of questions of identity.

The study identified three issues crucial to the pro-cess of entrepreneurial identity development in the entrepreneurial training context: 1) ritual pedagogy 2) identity negotiation and 3) intentional self-identity development. The findings show that entrepreneurial training which includes these three factors is able to promote and support entrepreneurial identity develop-ment. The contribution of my study to entrepreneurship education is a substantial theoretical model of entre-preneurial identity development in a ritual process.

The conclusion of the study is that a well-designed entrepreneurial training program can offer an arena to test and envisage entrepreneurial identity as a possible self. The study shows that entrepreneurial identity development seems to be a cyclic learning process. The findings demonstrate that entrepreneur-ial identity is an outcome of working. This working takes place in an identity negotiation, both alone and through significant others and the environment in social interaction. Entrepreneurial identity devel-opment is a dynamic process; it demands reworking from one moment and situation to another.

The results show that the ritual pedagogy offers an arena and a space for entrepreneurial identity devel-opment. Entrepreneurial learning methods using the theory of rites of passage speak the polyphonic language of an entrepreneurial way of life. The con-tribution of my study to entrepreneurship education is a substantial theoretical model of entrepreneurial identity development in a ritual process.

To improve the outcomes of entrepreneurial train-ing we should be active in creating new applications to support the process of entrepreneurial identity development. In order to have competent entrepre-neurs we need pedagogically competent trainers. The next challenge is to train the trainers. The students expect high professional competency, a unique type of communication, multi-faceted learning methods and interactivity. They must acquire tools to develop their competencies in entrepreneurship education. As Carrier (2005) has hoped, we as entrepreneurship edu-cators should be active in developing new approaches and methods and sharing the results with others.

Tiimiakatemia (Team Academy)

Tiimiakatemia is an educational program located in Jyväskylä JAMK University of Applied Sciences. It was founded in 1993 by Johannes Partanen. The idea of Tiimiakatemia is to combine the worlds of busi-ness and education and simply to help students learn

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about entrepreneurship. Nowadays Tiimiakatemia has around 180 learners in 10 teams and all of them will graduate as Bachelors of Business.

One of the most interesting thing with Tiimiakatemia is that all students and learners who work in teams operate as independent cooperative companies. Stu-dents are working in real-life projects, where they learn together about worklife and how to cover all the expenses of the company for example. Learning does not considered to happen in subjects or modules but in real working environments, which might be one reason that 42% of Tiimiakatemia graduates have started their own company after graduation.

Tiimiakatemia teachers are not considered teachers in the traditional sense, they are more like coaches for the learning processes. The main focus in teach-

ing methods are learning by doing and co–operative learning. Teacher’s role is very important though in offering a platform for reflection for the teams and building a culture based on an open dialogue between all the teams since the beginning.

RULES FROM TIIMIAKATEMIA

No students—but team entrepreneurs

No classrooms—but an open plan office

No teaching—but learning

No teachers—but coaches

No simulations—but real business

No control—but self-organizing

YES Network*

YES is a network of experts who support and train teachers in entrepreneurship education and serves as a developer of regional entrepreneurship education and school-business cooperation. The goal is that every young person in Finland receives entrepreneurship edu-cation regardless of educational level and municipality, and that every teacher has the capability to implement entrepreneurship education in their own work.

The YES Network is a network of networks, bring-ing together entrepreneurship education agents and other agents interested in the development of entre-preneurship and work life skills both regionally and nationally. We are there to support teachers in entre-

* http://www.yesverkosto.fi/yes/?lang=en

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preneurship education all around Finland. We train teaching staff, develop entrepreneurship education, build school-business cooperation and offer regional services for the JA Programs.

The aim of the YES Network is to create a new kind of work culture where education and business life are engaged in an active dialogue, where educational institutions operate in an entrepreneurial manner, and above all, young people receive adequate training during their studies to enter working life.

Due to entrepreneurship education, an entrepreneur-ial culture is strengthened in schools: entrepreneurial and working life skills of the teaching faculty grow, entrepreneurship education pedagogy develops and

new learning environments are created. Schools will train entrepreneurial and active members of the youth who will succeed in their future working lives.

YES services were first established in Finland in 2001, and have since developed into a wide entrepreneur-ship education network. YES services are available in the 15 regions across Finland, plus the national YES Office, which coordinates the whole network.

The YES Network works with the support of partners. Regional partners include regional development drives, entrepreneur organizations, and Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment.

YES services are principally free of charge. The ser-

vices are mostly available only in Finnish and Swedish.

The YES Network publishes materials and tools to support an active dialogue between teachers, trainers, entrepreneurs and working life. It supports educational institutions to operate in an entrepreneurial manner, and young people to receive skills to enter working life.

28 SWOT – analysis: Finland

Strengths

Quality of basic education is high, with increased focus on entrepreneurial thinking through for example “ilmiöopetus”,

which means working on projects/challenges in teams. Teaching is more facilitation or mentoring, with the aim to help students

solve real-life problems, and supports entrepreneurial thinking. There are a number of NGO:s, projects and programmes that offer young people support in entrepreneurial skills. (Nuori yrittäjyys, YES-verkosto)

Teachers in average have quite good skills in entrepreneurial pedagogy, and possibilities to train themselves in it.

Weaknesses

High level of project-based funding makes sustainability difficult.There is a need to develop co-operation and mentoring programmes with entrepreneurs, as well as other organizations with which project-based learning (including entrepreneurial skills) could be worked together with.There is still a need to further strengthen the entrepreneurial subjects in basic curricula (now much is up to specific teachers).

Opportunities

Functioning infrastructure and new curricula provide good opportunities for entrepreneurial studies.

Competencies and appreciation of teachers is high.Pedagogical models and know-how

have interest outside Finland.

Threats

Cutting public funding in general poses challenges especially to the NGO sector, which has a central role in furthering entrepreneurial activities in schools.Changing requirements in basic curricula is slow, although it already permits including entrepreneurial elements into the studies, it is much up to individual teachers.

29

General overview of entrepreneurial activities and support organizations in Lithuania

Entrepreneurship development activities and infrastructure of Lithuania Entrepreneurship

initiatives in Lithuania were started in 2002. The Lithuanian Economic Strategic Plan (2020) states that entrepreneurship is going to increase in the country when there will be significant increase in state com-petencies and business environment, agriculture and foreign businesses making close cooperation and investments in the region, fostering education and educational institutions cooperation with business entities. Fostering entrepreneurship will encourage more people to start their own businesses. Speak-

ing about entrepreneurship politics, it states that it should be oriented towards to entrepreneurship, innovation, investment capacity expansion and cre-ation of favourable environment for all businesses. More attention should be paid to creation of new work places as well as to service sector, research and other related activities.

The Lithuanian Advancement Strategy ‘Lithuania 2030’, describe entrepreneurship in general terms. With this document, participants in the economy are encouraged to pay more attention to entrepreneurship education

and to support businesses creation. Every entrepreneur citizen should have possibilities to start their own busi-ness and implement it successfully, be active in work and learning environments. Only then added value will be created in entities that are based on intelligence and innovative products and services. In addition, it is emphasized that it is essential to form positive public opinion about business and entrepreneurship.

In Lithuania there are various projects implemented which are supporting youth entrepreneurship. For instance, there is working youth organisations, NGOs

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and other organisations, which aims at increasing youth entrepreneurship education and skills formation. There are also various conferences, seminars and workshops that are held, aimed towards fostering an entrepreneur-ial spirit in youth and citizens of Lithuania.

According to the World Bank’s Doing Business 2017 report, Lithuania ranks 21st in the world for ease of starting a business.

Enterprise Lithuania

Enterprise Lithuania is a non-profit agency under Ministry of Economy established to promote entre-preneurship, support business development and foster export. The team at Enterprise Lithuania is a reliable adviser and assistant for start, growth and export of national businesses with focus on SME’s.

Agency supports the establishment and development of competitive businesses in the country and fosters the country’s exports by facilitating cooperation with partners’ networks and providing quality training, consultancy, market analysis, and business-partner search services for businesses.

Organization is a recognized facilitator of startup community and ecosystem in Lithuania.

Enterprise Lithuania is a one-stop-shop for entrepre-neurs across EU: it provides information on regula-tions, requirements, licenses as well as quality support to establish business in Lithuania.

Analytical and research team has created a valuable informational resource on national macroeconomic trends and developments, including but not limiting

to ongoing sector analysis, export prognosis, bilateral trade relations.

The knowledge and expertise of professional team, gained through direct working with the country’s companies and exporters, will help you to find the best and most reliable suppliers of products, services and technologies in Lithuania. Multicultural approach helps us to better understand and evaluate the needs and interests of foreign clients.

Valleys

Within the format of the Valley development pro-grammes, it is sought to upgrade Lithuanian scientific research infrastructure and provide conditions for active cooperation between business and science which helps create high value added. The Valleys will offer

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infrastructure to carry out applied research and tech-nology development and favourable conditions for the establishment of new or young innovative companies.

Overall five integrated science, research and busi-ness valleys are being developed in the territories of Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipėda. Each of these valleys specializes in a different area of scientific research: laser and light technologies, civil engineering,bio-technology, molecular medicine,nanotechnologies, sustainable chemistry and biopharmacy, information and communication technologies,electronics and organic electronics,and others.

Investment and Business Guarantees EGA)

Access to finance is one of the strongest elements of the youth entrepreneurship support system in Lithuania.

Although the financial market is small, the national government has a well-develop microcredit programme that is operated by the public agency INVEGA.

INVEGA is a stable and renowned team of finance experts, which develops and implements effective solutions for promoting entrepreneurship.

Youth have preferential access to this support and can also benefit from free training and assistance in preparing their application for funding.

At the moment the Entrepreneurship Promotion Fund instrument offers the best conditions for newly estab-lished and young businesses. http://invega.lt/wp-con-tent/uploads/2016/05/V-EPF-in-LT-Case-Study.pdf

Junior Achievement Lithuania

Junior Achievement Lithuania, established in 1993, is a non-profit organization, which promotes and executes various theoretical and practical educa-tional programs of market economy in Lithuanian schools. Junior Achievement Lithuania is a member of the Junior Achievement Worldwide, which was established in 1919.

Mission of Junior Achievement Lithuania is to inspire and educate young Lithuanians to value free enter-prise, to understand business and economics, to develop entrepreneurial and leadership skills. Young people should be allowed to believe in their own cre-ative powers and use them as a basis for creating value, developing workplaces and taking responsibil-ity in the community. The ultimate goal is to direct young people’s attention to their own possibilities

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to improve their living standards and change their lives. No less important goal is to spread know-how about business and foster favourable conditions for cooperation between school and businesses.

Junior Achievement Lithuania organizes Junior Achievement Marketplace. Junior Achievement Mar-ketplace offers an opportunity to Junior Achievement secondary school student companies to show off their innovative ideas and sell their products and services in a public setting. It is also an opportunity to meet young people from other countries, their teachers and business volunteers.

Under our flagship Junior Achievement Company Programme students find out what it’s really like to set up and run a business. Delivered across an aca-demic year, young people make all the decisions about

their company, from raising the initial share capital through to designing their product or service to selling directly to customers and ultimately winding up the company and paying their taxes. All this takes place with the support of a business adviser who brings a wealth of business knowledge and expertise to the team and the support of the teacher who facilitate the learning-by-doing process.

CreaTivity and Innovation Centre “LinkMenųfabrikas”

Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) “LinkMenų fabrikas” – is a space for everyone who wants to create, develop and implement their ideas. Center workshops and bureaus are designed to be used by creative and innovative people, from begin-ners to professionals. The aim of this creativity and

innovation center is to become a venue for practical workshops and the realization of various projects.

In collaboration with national and international partners, the center focuses on developing students’ creativity and practical skills by inviting them to the first such workshop in Lithuania.

VGTU “LinkMenų fabrikas” contains mechanics, wood, metal, painting, 3D printing, electronics, transport, technical and creative spaces, adver-tising, photo / video and audio recording studios. It accommodates teamwork, creative inspiration spaces, lounge area and is equipped with the most advanced modern technology, which allows a team of developers working in different areas to turn interdisciplinary ideas to real products and services. Active cooperation with various businesses will

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allow the best ideas to move beyond the threshold and become real market products.

Innovation Office

VsI Inovaciju biuras (Innovation Office)’s main focus is on creativity and entrepreneurship, however orga-nization encourages people to be active in many fields as innovations could be grown only if person has open mind and has broad point of view. Organisation creates supportive environment for people’s activity, creativity and innovations. Organization invites to

participate in different courses, seminars, workshops, and other events as people could gain more knowledge and be more creative and more confident in different situations. As well it encourages people to be active, more creative and do not give up. Organisation works with youth to gain real experience by developing different projects.

The aim of Innovation Office (Inovacijų biuras) is to promote innovations: to create a supportive environ-ment, to disseminate innovative ideas, to motivate innovator to be active, to form innovative society.

Innovation Office acts as incubator for good ideas, inspired by several projects, organization established Innovation Laboratory where young people can learn secrets of entrepreneurship and let to young people to realize their own ideas.

Innovation Office encourages people to make changes step-by-step, in order to grow innovations inside themselves.

34 SWOT – analysis: Lithuania

Strengths

Young people are full of creative ideas, strong educational background

There are a number of NVO organisations, formal institutions responsible for free counselling

During the first year, some taxes are reducedLithuania has good rank for business

environment, it’s easy to set up business.

Weaknesses

Young people want quick results, they don’t always trust in themselvesEducation / counselling is fragmented, continuity is neededNot so many EU or local funding for young enterprisesComplexity of administration and accountancy,Small local market

Opportunities

Courses focused on enabling young people, self-esteemFramework needed and some official

programmes for provided service qualityMore support from local government and other funds

Better conditions for tax system (for example, the only tax – revenue or profit tax)

Threats

Failures of new businesses in close environment,lack of support from close environmentReducing financing for counselling / education for business beginnersReducing financing for business support Constantly changing business law

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General overview of entrepreneurial activities and support organizations in LatviaFor the last decade Latvia has been recognized as a perfect launchpad for young entrepreneurs and start-ups to go global, because it offers reasonable startup costs, access to international entrepreneurial talent and capital, well developed entrepreneurial infra-structure and support programs for young entrepre-neurial-minded individuals.

Latvia is the first of three Baltic States to develop and successfully pass Startup Law that makes ear-ly-stage business beneficial and therefore raises the

potential of competitive entrepreneurial environ-ment development, focusing on creativity, innova-tion and technology.

The ecosystem of entrepreneurship of Latvia con-sists of number of startups, startup founders and professionals, state agencies coworking spaces, incu-bators, accelerators, tech labs, universities, public, private and non-profit organisations, individual and institutional investors and supporters, as well as other service providers. The startup movement

in collaboration with entrepreneurship developing organizations from abroad has become a powerful tool for development of future Latvia’s economy, improving collaboration between different levels of institutions and making a synergy.

The central organisation that works with startups and young entrepreneurs on national level in is Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA), which is in directly subordinated to the Minister of Economics. Agency aims to promote business development by

36

facilitating more investment, increasing the compet-itiveness of Latvian entrepreneurs in both domestic and foreign markets*. It develops regular gatherings, hackathons, meetups, conferences, workshops, as well as other capacity building activities linked to startup programs. Support programs implemented by agency include Startup Support programs, Inno-vation Motivation programs (like “Pupils Training Enterprise”, “Ideju kauss”, etc.), Innovation Voucher support services, Support for Commercialization of Scientific Research Results, Promotion of Inter-national Competitiveness in entrepreneurship and tourism, as well as setting up business incubators in Latvia and other projects.

Apart from private banking, several governmental financing institutions of Latvia offer legal, consul-

* Investment and Development Agency of Latvia,

http://www.liaa.gov.lv/en/about/about-liaa

tancy and financial support for young entrepreneurs and recent startups. It is available for those, who have limited opportunities to receive the loan from the bank. One of the most developed public institution is ALTUM, which offers different kinds of financial instruments like loans, guarantees, investments etc. for entrepreneurs and startups that develop products and services in priority fields of economics in Latvia.

Business incubators

As the main goal of the business incubators in Latvia is to help develop new viable and competitive busi-ness ideas, incubators provide a support mechanism, including consultations, mentorship, guidance and co-financing.

The main driver of business incubation is Investment and Development Agency of Latvia, which has set

more that 15 new incubators since October 2016 in terms of “Start!” programme. There are distinctions in specialisations of business incubators, so among generally innovation-oriented incubators LIAA sup-ports also Creative Industry Incubator in Riga. In fact, there are several other incubators in Riga like TechHub Riga for startups focused on technology, University of Latvia Business Incubator for students, Technological Park of Latvia, RTU Business Incubator “IdeaLAB” etc.

The role of Investment and Development Agency in enterprise incubation is significant, because it covers expenses related to events and seminars that take place in incubators, as well as delivers 50% financial support for services available for entrepreneurs in the open office, so the costs of premises and other services are low and services available.

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LIAA Creative Industry Incubator (Riga)

Creative Industry Incubator, created by LIAA, is aimed specifically on support of young entrepreneurs that develop their products using creative and artistic approaches and concepts. By organising seminars, lectures and workshops, mentoring sessions, product competitions, offering working environment and nec-essary tools, incubator is contributing to business devel-opment of already existing entrepreneurs, beginners and even those, who did not come with the concept yet.

University of Latvia Business Incubator for students (Riga)

Positioning itself as a socially responsible incubator, University of Latvia successfully manages incubator for students that offers 12 month incubation period for young entrepreneurs in combination with oppor-

tunity to attend educational courses run by Faculty of Business, Management and Economics. Incubator aims at promoting entrepreneurial culture among students as potential businessmen, supporting with necessary knowledge, skills and funding opportu-nities for successful development of business ideas.

It offers free working and production premises for early startup companies run mainly by students, men-toring and coaching, hosting of webpages, LU FabLab studio for prototype creation, access to databases, opportunities for ideas’ and products’ exhibition, crowdfunding platform, as well as multimedia studio, and all in motivational environment. Financially incubator is supported by private patrons from Latvia and abroad, companies and financial institutions in Latvia, as well as other donators.

Riga Technical University Business Incubator “IdeaLAB”

The incubation program is one year long, includ-ing team works and individual consultations with mentors and other professionals, but at the end of the program best ideas’ authors are granted with an opportunity to continue the work in another industry incubator in Latvia. Additionally, financial support is offered to develop participants’ business ideas.

Latvian Business Angel Network

“IdeaLAB” is a Riga Technical University (RTU) Busi-ness incubator for students, which connects talented entrepreneurs, mentors, startup enthusiasts, educa-tional staff and investors. The creation of Business incubator is an initiative of RTU Design Factory that runs “the Lab” and aims to promote studies

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and scientific researches in order to ensure devel-opment of sustainable innovation and trustful bond with entrepreneurs. As “IdeaLAB” is a part of aca-demic environment, it promotes "learning through doing”, supports in finding best ideas and empower to develop them.

The term “Business angel” describes an investor that has accumulated experience in entrepreneurship and invests own private funds in business projects. He provides important support to new enterprises with a potential for rapid growth at their early stage of devel-opment. Business angel’s experience helps startups to prevent risks in entrepreneurship and gives an oppor-tunity to find the shortest path to profit.Before the Investment Session one should go through the appli-cation process, preliminary selection of best business ideas and consultation sessions to be better prepared

for the main activity – presentations to investors. This is not only an opportunity to receive funding for busi-ness idea, but also gain valuable advices and contacts.

Pupil Training Enterprise

The Pupil Training Program is an enterprise, which is established and run by school pupils inside the educational school frame. It functions as a normal enterprise, working in a real environment, producing and selling products or services. Companies estab-lished in a training program are represented by Junior Achievement Latvija and schools, as long as they do not have real legal status of enterprise in Latvia.

The objective of Pupil Training Enterprise program is to educate new generation of entrepreneurs and professionals, connecting theoretical knowledge with

practice. It is also an interactive learning method, which teaches to work in teams, develops educational content, offers a space for improvisation for teachers and educated ones that is acknowledged and recom-mended by Ministry of Education and Science of Latvia.

To participate in a program, school has to register as Junior Achievement (JA) participating school. The enterprise can be established in the category of “4.-9. grade” or "10.-12.grade”. After the accomplishment of Business plan, which is approved by school, enterprise is founded and the production can be started. Usually the period of work is 4-9 months, but in case of success it can be extended. Also the best teachers/consultants are awarded for the contribution in development of entrepreneurship.

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TechHub Riga

”TechHub” is the global community for tech entre-preneurs and startups active in several capitals of Europe, including Riga.”TechHub Riga” is a part of the startup community that aims to encourage the growth of innovation and technology startups. It is also working as a coworking space, where teams and individuals can meet, establish new partnerships, generate ideas and develop innovative startups.

“TechHub Riga” is already famous with meaningful events on technology and entrepreneurship organised for young professionals on regular basis – from lec-tures, meetups and workshops to huge international events like “TechChill”.

Also, it runs “TechHub Startup Academy” for young entrepreneurs, which is two-day intensive bootcamp

for those, who are early stage startups, working on mobile application, social network, hardware gadget or anything else that is IT and tech. Bootcamp of “TechHub Startup Academy” offers a chance to come and pitch the product to mentors, receiving an initial feedback and advices, developing the knowledge and using them in practice.

Organisation is actively involved in co-creation and promotion of activities organised by other startup-ori-ented organisation, like “The Mill”, Art and Technol-ogy Quartier, coworking space “DarbaVieta” etc.

Digital Media Startup Academy

”Digital Media Startup Academy” is a short training course organised by Investment and Development Agency of Latvia and “TechHub Riga” for digital content

developers, who are interested in launching a social network, online TV, digital tool for e-commerce, blog-ging, media, portals, consumer-oriented product, etc.

It is three-day intense training and working event for development of startups for people with necessary knowledge within digital field. Teams and individu-als from the region countries are welcome to learn, present their startups, attend valuable sessions with mentors and investors.

“DarbaVieta”

“DarbaVieta” is a coworking space, where young entre-preneurs and professionals find a place and tools to develop their ideas, foster the network, build new part-nerships, participate in community building events, workshops and seminars. It is one of the first cowork-

40

ing space in Riga, located in the centre of the city and it promotes sharing and exchange of skills, resources, experience and contacts, building a community.

900 m2 of space in “DarbaVieta” offer 24/7 access to working premises, fast internet, office equipment, cre-ative studio (can be used as photo studio, for creative workshops and informal meetings), kitchen (with free tea and coffee), conference rooms, community events and other benefits.

Birojnīca

“Birojnīca” is a coworking and event space in the centre of Riga, where educational lectures, meetups, seminars and workshops are organized on a regular basis and open for everyone. As a coworking space it offers cozy interiors and silent place to work and

read, as long as almost every wall is covered by books. “Birojnīca has quite flexible approach to the pricing – everyone can come in and work for a while, if he orders a hot drink, or, if it is planned to stay longer, one pays only 6 EUR for whole day. Also, meeting spaces for entrepreneurs, designers, researchers, IT and marketing specialists can be reserved to meet the requirements of collaborative business.

The Mill

“The Mill” is a coworking space for creative profes-sionals, developers, designers, architects and startup folks, located in Riga. It offers resident and drop-in memberships for those, who need fixed working area with unlimited access to premises, and those, who can work from any workplace on working days from 9 am to 6 pm.

There is a working space and hang-out area, and this is also a place where the numerous events take place, building a creative minded community to create a greater value for business. The venues for private events like meetups, discussions, conference and parties can also be rented.

“Idejukauss” (“Idea Cup”) (2017)

“Idejukauss” is a challenging opportunity to take part in training organised by professionals in busi-ness area in order to foster the network of contacts, gain valuable advices for business and compete for the money prize to develop the idea. Participant can be anyone aged above 17, who is ready to challenge him/herself and others, has entrepreneurial mind-set and innovative ideas. The event is organised in 2

41

rounds. In the first round one can apply with the short descriptions as an individual or with a team and best business ideas are selected in order to participate in second round - webinars to master necessary com-petences and make the business plan more complete and successful. After the webinars best business ideas participate in the competition, so the most successful gain financial support for the start-up.*

Creative Business Cup 2017

“Creative Business Cup” is an international network for innovative entrepreneurship, that connects start-ups, professionals from different industries and global market, coming for the main event each year in Copen-

* Idejukauss, http://idejukauss.lv/

hagen in order to present the startup and find new opportunities of business and career development. But before the event, hundreds smaller Creative Business Cup events take place is countries around the world, where 3 best performances of young entrepreneurs are picked up and mentored before participation in a global event.National round of the competition in Latvia is run by LIAA Creative Industries Incubator and Centre of Young Entrepreneurs “Jobs & Society”. Participant’s profile is based on commercial potential of activities, creative approach to product or service production, using creative competences of design, aesthetics, art, games, music, media, performances etc., as well as cooperating with other industries in its development. Enterprise should own the rights on business idea and the external financial support for the product (enter-prise) should not exceed 1 billion dollars.

During the competition event participants receive valuable feedback on their performances, recom-mendations and proposals, opportunity to join the global market and network of professionals, reach the investors, partners and even governments, get access to different funding opportunities, receive the chance to represent own country and gain the money prize (15,000 EUR) in global event.

Central Baltic Startup Springboard

“Central Baltic Startup Springboard” is a cooperation project between University of Turku, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn Science Park TECHNOPOLIS, Latvia Technology Park and Riga Technical University, that organise 3 joint 10-week business acceleration programs for already established early stage startup companies in order to find out new “startup stars” and

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coach them towards success. “Springboard” focuses on tech startups in fields of IST, cleantech, healthtech and biotech, promoting innovations and international competitiveness of participants.

The program aims at establishing a cross-border cooperation with versatile know-how and experi-ence, finding and developing most viable business ideas in order to raise the competitiveness of startup region. During the accelerator mentors from Estonia and Latvia, training and guidance are available for participants free of charge to refine and polish their startups, but the best teams in all three accelerators are being awarded with a money prize to support the business activities. In support of early stage companies targeted B2B matchmaking activities are organised within Central Baltic Startup Springboard.*

* http://www.cbspringboard.eu/en/

”Riga – Cambridge” camp

”Riga – Cambridge” is an intense weeklong training course for 20 students and young entrepreneurs from Latvia that is aimed at development of entrepreneurial skills in young people. The main focus is put on the abilities to present business ideas – concept and devel-opment plan. Also one of the tasks of the program is to empower and motivate youth to take a step into entrepreneurship world. The program consists of two modules. Firstly, young people present their business ideas to the jury in Riga, competing for a chance to be selected for participation in second module – in Cambridge. After one-and-a-half-month long prepa-ration in Latvia, young people go to Cambridge, UK, and learn from the trainers and mentors from Latvia and UK on how to generate business ideas, develop business plans and be successful. New knowledge are

cbspringboard-en/about-springboard

delivered in lectures, meetups with entrepreneurs and practical workshops, where the team work takes place. The camp is organised in cooperation between the Cambrigde module organiser, professor and startup specialist Allan Barrel, and University of Latvia gives an opportunity to receive the scholarship to partly cover travel expenses for students.** The switch of the environments to international innovation centre – Cambridge – is of special importance, so young people can learn more about how entrepreneurial attitude differs in Latvia and UK and takeover best practices.

Atspēriens

In translation from Latvian “Atspēriens” means “springboard” (stepping-point), and it is used to

** Riga – Cambridge, http://www.labsoflatvia.com/lv/

zinas/pedejais-bridis-pieteikties-nometnei-riga-kembridza

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describe joint support program for young entrepre-neurs created by Municipality of Riga and Swedbank. It has been found in 2009 and has financially sup-ported more than 150 entrepreneurs in Riga city. The program is created for those who need knowledge and financial support to start a business and develop its competitiveness, and who has been registered in Riga for less than 2 years, as it limits to support innovative initiatives coming to the capital city.

Program prioritizes business ideas related to trans-port and storageing, construction, tourism and fields related to it, production of electronic and optical devices, ICT, food, drinks, wood, cork and metal prod-ucts. Grant program “Atspēriens” gives an opportunity to receive coverage for up to 80% of costs related to license and specific technology purchase, expenses on accountant and legal services, webpage development,

training for the employees, marketing materials’ development and rent of premises. Available grant for one enterprise is up to 15,000 EUR.

iNOVUSS

iNOVUSS is the festival of innovations, fresh ideas, bright points of views and solutions that are shared by professionals and individuals participating. It is an event organised by Investment and Development Agency of Latvia for potential and existing entrepre-neurs that reminds a real open-air festival with the main stage and participants’ tents. Event offers variety of inspiring ideas, experiences, discussion panels and workshops for those, who want to be entrepreneurs. It takes place in August (2 days) and gathers together people working and interested in entrepreneurship, technology, innovations, research and development,

leadership and creativity. Speakers are entrepreneurs and professional from all over the world, who speak about the role of innovations, global trends in entre-preneurship and science, share examples and experi-ence of other countries in region, as well as practical advices. Also, discussions of successful Latvian entre-preneurs take place at iNOVUSS and give the oppor-tunity of networking for interested ones.

The program and territory of iNOVUSS festival is well structured, so stakeholders move between the science and technology, design, finance, educational (masterclass) areas and networking places depending on their interest.*

* iNOVUSSFestival,http://www.inovuss.lv/par-festivalu/

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“TechChill”

is the leading two-day tech event in Baltics annually organized by TechHub Riga, that brings together founders, entrepreneurs, challengers, innovators, investors and other stakeholders from all over the world. The main goal of event is to promote inno-vation, technology and entrepreneurship, making a

space for new startups to become visible. “TechChill” offers Startup Expo, meeting area for pre-arranged meetings with professionals and potential investors, Pitch ”battle” for early stage startups from the region, speakers with experience in innovation, technology and startup world, as well as media coverage and visibility for entrepreneurs, networking, exclusive side events and many more.

The majority of all participants of the event are start-ups and techies from the Baltics, Nordics and CIS, so the new cooperation ideas can arise during the “Tech-Chill” event. It is also an opportunity for investors to have a time and space to speak to young entrepreneurs and find out startups to invest in.

45 SWOT – analysis: Latvia

Strengths

Self perception of youth shows around 70% believe that they are entrepreneurially minded

Law on Social entrepreneurship is in force since 1 of April, 2018, which provides more

possibilities and support for socially oriented enterprisesYouth are willing to think about their own enterprise, search for

information, attend seminars and lectures on the topicEntrepreneurship is seen as something exciting that builds this

notion and facilitates interest in the topic.

Weakness

Youth has no perception that support system in Latvia is well developed to support youngentrepreneurs, answers are polarisedEstablishing an enterprise is still seen as a risk. Youth is cautious about making mistakes and the “failure culture” is not established yetInformation and support is fragmented, and youth often get lost in all the support mechanisms.

Opportunity

Over 60% would be ready to start a business in their own countryYouth is willing to experiment much more than the

previous generations and seek for opportunities to enhance their self-development

The development of online courses, cross country programmes, Internet and social media makes it very

easy to access the success stories also from abroad. Entrepreneurship has become a global matter.

Threats

Data contradicts with too high entrepreneurially minded youth versus statistical dataAcademic infrastructure still plays an important role, however, in Latvia it is too theoretical and often does not reflect new entreprenerual global trendsThe lack of support from the government for youth entrepreneurship and starting your own business – there is no framework for experimenting and learning while doing.

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General overview of entrepreneurial activities and support organizations in Estonia

While small, the Estonia startup ecosystem is growing very rapidly, building on the several

success stories it has produced. Skype, the world’s larg-est P2P communications platform, is often considered the trigger of Estonia’s emerging startup ecosystem. Skype’s acquisition by eBay for $2.6 billion in 2005 put the Baltic state on the global map of innovation and fueled it with financial resources and startup experience. The FinTech startup TransferWise, among others, re-confirmed that Estonian startups can be globally competitive with a $58 million Series C round

in January 2015 led by renowned Silicon Valley firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Whether directly or indirectly, the government has been supporting the ecosystem and has helped it gain momen-tum. Initiatives such as e-government, the digitization of public agency processes, and e-Residency, offering foreigners a government-issued digital identity and the opportunity to run a trusted company online, have been well-received by the startup community. Accordingly an impressive 66% of Estonian startup founders expressed

satisfaction with regards to the national government whereas the global average lies at only 25%.

The private sector has been very active as well. The estab-lishment of many accelerator programs and co-working spaces as well as the development of a growing investor community have been crucial in fueling the ecosys-tem with know-how and capital. The contribution of Skype alumni is notable, with several early employees becoming angel investors and the co-founders starting an active venture investment group.

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Whether directly or indirectly, the government has been supporting the ecosystem and has helped it gain momentum. Initiatives such as e-government, the digitization of public agency processes, and e-Resi-dency, offering foreigners a government-issued digital identity and the opportunity to run a trusted company online, have been well-received by the startup com-munity. Accordingly an impressive 66% of Estonian startup founders expressed satisfaction with regards to the national government whereas the global aver-age lies at only 25%.

The private sector has been very active as well. The establishment of many accelerator programs and co-working spaces as well as the development of a growing investor community have been crucial in fuelling the ecosystem with know-how and capi-tal. The contribution of Skype alumni is notable,

with several early employees becoming angel inves-tors and the co-founders starting an active venture investment group.

The Estonian Business Angels Network now counts more than 100 members. While this has meant improved funding for startups, the average investment amount for seed rounds is, at $0.45 million, still signifi-cantly below the European average of $0.62 million.

In addition to VC financing, Estonian startups have to focus outside the country for two other key ele-ments. First for customers – in comparison to many other ecosystems around the world, its local market of just over 1 million people forces startups to think global from the onset. As was explained in Compass’ Startup Ecosystem Report on Waterloo, Canada, this can play to an ecosystem’s advantage. Estonia’s ear-

ly-stage startups have an average 60% of foreign customers, which is 4% higher than the European average. However, considering its local economy is even smaller than Israel’s, a percentage equal to or above Tel Aviv’s (74%) would correspond to a healthier level of global focus.

Secondly, Estonian startups have to look outside their country to find talent. Estonia has produced some great entrepreneurs and top talent but across skill sets stakeholders agree that the quantity is insufficient to meet the growing need. In order to close that gap with a small population, immigration must be part of the solution. With only 24% of foreign employees versus 53% for London, much can still be done. Having achieved a high immigration success rate and short visa response time, efforts have turned to attracting high-quality technical talent, especially from Russia

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and former Soviet Bloc countries where large pools of top quality talent are looking for exciting startups to join. The last two years have seen an increased influx of such talent. However, Andrei Korobeinik, entrepreneur and Board Member of the Estonian Business Angels Network, explains, “There is a lot to do to ensure that our ecosystem continues to grow sustainably. Latvia and Lithuania have much better immigration policies

in place, which is going to hurt Estonia’s competitive-ness if we fail to take immediate actions.”

Given the ecosystem’s small size and the considerable amount of startup success stories, it is not surprising that Estonian startups have slightly more employees with prior startup experience (41%) than the European average (39%). This is also reflected in the percent-

age of founders with hypergrowth experience where Estonia scores 2% higher than the European average (15% versus 13%), but much lower than London (23%). Yet, experts consider the depth of experience to be relatively shallow. The number of advisors with equity for example currently lies at only 0.76, versus 1.05 for the European average.

49 SWOT – analysis: Estonia

Strengths

Rapid growth of new enterprises, with successes among them. New enterprises regard existing government support for entrepreneur-

ship high compared to other countries. Estonia produces the biggest number of startups and seed stage investments per capita in Europe.

Estonia’s economic freedom is regarded as one of the highest in the world and the best in the Central Eastern European region.Entrepreneurial competences are among the essential compe-

tences that ought to be acquired at all school levels. In secondary education, it is a part of the compulsory subject "Civic studies"

and the optional subject "Economics and business studies".

Weaknesses

Identified obstacles in strengthening the role of entrepreneurship edu-cation have been identified in teachers’ motivation and engagement, lack of sufficient funding, entrepreneurship education perspective not sufficiently incorporated in the current examination systemAs a small nation, talent must be increasingly sought through immigration. There is much to do regarding immigration laws to support fluid and flexible immigration (compared to for instance Latvia and Lithuania).

Opportunities

Different EU projects offer good possibilities to further develop sustainable models for entrepreneurial skills, especially in the

Nordic/Baltic region.Authorities in the educational sector want to learn from success-

ful implementations and to choose from what works in similar environments to use in their own plans.

Evaluations identifying drivers and hindrances are key for poli-ticians and decision makers who need to understand different

implementation models for entrepreneurship education.There is s strong interest towards developing entrepreneurship

education on governmental level.

Threats

As public money is scarce, the cost of developing entre-preneurship training can be a burden especially if under one ministry.Difficulties in attracting talent from outside of Estonia.Small domestic markets, where success demands high degree of exports from enterprises.

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What kind of stories lie behind successful young entrepreneurs? What led them to their success?

What do they think are the key elements of entrepre-neurship? What where the biggest challenges?

We gathered stories that range a broad perspective of different disciplines in order to gain insight to the mindset of youth. Through these stories we also came to understand that young people are growingly inter-ested in entrepreneurial activities as for of realizing their dreams. Many of them had no inclination to aim

for “steady jobs” – but wanted to find their dreams on their own.

New media and contents & technology with a creative touch

SprayPrinter (Estonia)

A new technology that converts beautiful designs into wall art. All you need is to download an application

to your smart phone, choose your favourite image, attach the SprayPrinter nozzle on a spray can and start painting. Our target group is DIY homeowners all around the world who love innovative technologies. In addition to the product we are creating a commu-nity that brings together artists and their customers – home owners. SprayPrinter will bring colours and beauty to our everyday life.

While SprayPrinter may seem like it operates on uni-corn magic, it is not quite so mysterious: SprayPrinter

Success stories

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communicates to your phone via bluetooth and an LED-light on the printer. The image is printed layer by layer, pixel by pixel, and you can use as many colors as you like. It isn’t just a new, fun tool, it’s a totally unique printmaking method connecting digital and analogue. It’s like a coloring book that keeps you inside the lines so you don’t have to worry about ruining your wall.

Herbalisti & Lakko (Finland)

All kinds of idols and stars have always been around, and been famous in Finland – formula 1 drivers, foot-ball teams, bands, musicians, movie stars and hockey players. Nowadays we can add Youtube stars to this list.

Lakko and Herbalisti are Finnish Youtube stars. Herbalisti has over 170,000 subscribers in Youtube and Lakko has around 352,000. Best videos usually

gather around 200,000 views in a week. They have also gotten their own TV-show in Finland an last year they were announced as two new hosts in one of the most famous TV-shows in Finland called “Posse”.

One year ago only children and teenagers from 4–14 year olds knew them, but now probably everyone in Finland knows them. More and more brands in Finland recognize the popularity of Youtube stars nowadays and they are been used on TV commercials, magazines and also the Finnish State Department, which has joined Youtube recently.

Alma (Finland)

21 year old Alma is the next pop star coming from Finland. Interesting thing with her is that she was in the brink of exclusion, but her love towards music,

and her friends saved her. Now she is widely known around the world, performing with different super-stars like Robbie Williams.

She has now signed contracts with three international record companies and she keeps touring, writing songs, doing a new album and performing around the world. The first single from her, called “Karma” has been listened over 17 million times in Spotify and was played in Elton John’s radio show last year, which gave a huge boost into her career.

When Alma was a child, she was bullied a lot. All the friends left her out of games and plays, which gave her a big scar, so that she needed to find her self confidence again, which took years. Even though the past was hard, she knew that she was good at some-thing, and that was music. In 2012 Alma graduated

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from secondary school, and tried to get to different music high schools, but her grades weren’t good enough. So she started at a different high school, but ended the studies after two weeks. After that she spent most time at home just hanging, and time went by. This was the time, when her friends pulled her up from depression and inclusion, and Alma joined the finnish version of the famous TV-show “Idols”. Alma got into semifinals, but experienced a disappointment and didn’t get to finals. After that she wanted to make a record, but didn’t get any help from finnish record companies. Alma said in an interview, done by a finnish magazine that: “Those times I realized, that I’m still young, I need to get more time, to find my thing what to do. The failures raised me a lot, and when I succeeded after that the feeling was amazing!.”

“You don’t need to have a tragic past behind, but I believe that my creativity rises from things that I have experienced.” © Alma Miettinen

Vividly (Latvia)

With increasing popularity of technology with imple-mented augmented reality (AR) among startups in Latvia, "Vividly” project has come up with its inno-vative way to optimize architecture planning and reduce unnecessary expenses of clients on rebuilding or re-designing. Startup is implemented by "Go VR Studio” and offers a digital tool for designing build-ings and interior, allowing architects and designers to present their clients more precise and attractive plans for the future objects and take a look on them in digital environment from anywhere in the world. It has a potential to increase the quality and effec-

tiveness of construction process, improves commu-nication between the client, architect un constructor, optimises decision making and simply lets to present the idea with high level of credibility.*

As one of the most successful startup developer in Latvia, the founder of "Vividly” Gunita Kuļikovska (26) has been included in Forbes Baltic list of "30 under 30” 2016** and also particiated in "Ted x Riga” event, speak-ing about the virtual reality in architecture (check on http://2016.tedxriga.com/schedule/gunita-kulikovska/). The success is obvious taking into consideration, that company has been founded in 2016, but Archipreneur has already awarded Gunita as one of 7 most inspiring

* http://vividlyapp.com/

** http://forbes.lv/30under30/talents-of-2016/

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women-entrepreneurs in field of architecture.* ‘Go VR Studio’ is a startup company that has represented Latvia in "Creative Business Cup” in Copenhagen, in 2016, as a result of successful representation of "Viv-idly” in national Creative Business Cup selection of participants.** "Go VR Studio” is also one of the creator of "Archi Tech Riga” week that gathers professionals and entrepreneurs to present recent innovations and trends, as well as initiate meetups and discussions on technology in city planning and architechture***. Later the idea of "Archi Tech Riga” developed into the regular meetup group.

* http://inovuss.lv/2017/team/gunita-kulikovska/

** http://www.fold.lv/2016/06/creative-

business-cup-2016-latviju-parstaves-vividly/

*** https://www.facebook.com/VividlyApp/photos/o.1

33005743515398/1592097327746822/?type=3

MailerLite (Lithania)****

IgnasRubežius leads MailerLite, a worldwide email marketing service that serves over 409,076 busi-nesses, start-ups and freelancers around the world trust MailerLite. They send more than 1 billion emails every month.

MailerLite is based in Vilnius, but half of the team works remotely from places like Scotland, Thailand, Costa Rica, Poland.

MailerLite team speaks fluently in 7 languages: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Polish and Lithuanian. Average age of the team members is 28 year.

**** https://www.mailerlite.com/about

Today MailerLite is a team of 32 designers, developers, writers, speakers, photographers, surfers, chess players, world travellers, dreamers and genuine nice people.

Ignas himself is an entrepreneur who leads by prac-ticality and good design. MailerLite was created after reading the book ‘Rework’ by Basecamp. They still think that it is the best book about business.

In 2005 a web design and development agency was started. After a few years email marketing was dis-covered. Since 2010 MailerLite is the only product that they develop.

In the first year MailerLite’s revenue was 1,652 EUR. It took us 3 years to hit the first million. People from 120 countries read MailerLite’s weekly newsletter.

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SearchNode (Lithuania)*

AntanasBakšys is a business developer, e-commerce practitioner and entrepreneur working on making a positive impact in the world and ecommerce market. Antanas started entrepreneurship career at age of 13 with the help of his grandmother (she was CEO of his companies, before he could overtake duties at age of 18).

Today, he is one of the most promising Lithuanian and Baltic entrepreneurs. One of the leading search technology for ecommerce leaders in Europe. Cur-rently, it generates six-digits annual revenue and works with over 100 clients from 13 countries.

* https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/searchnode

Ultimate Search Solution for Ecommerce – SearchNode. Established by 6 aspiring ecommerce professionals and software developers. Advised by Kaunas Technology University data & machine learning scientists.

SearchNode offers site-search and business intelli-gence SaaS solution for small-mid sized ecommerce sites. To resolve ineffective site-search problem, SearchNode is the best way! SearchNode will boost site-search conversions and revenue, increase user experience and user satisfaction, give insights and improve performance. Strong team with good knowl-edge and strong enthusiasm will let this startup grow fast and effectively.

More about Lithuanianentrepreneurship: http://invega.lt/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/V-EPF-in-LT-Case-Study.pdf

New business models

Sorry as a Service (Estonia)

Sorry As A Service is one of a kind apology service provider for companies. They turn your customer mis-takes into successful relationships. Sorry as a Service is simple to use: the integrated platform connects cus-tomer’s CRM with their apology partners. Dispatching an apology has never been so fast and easy. They believe in local products and their selection of apologies are carefully picked from local quality vendors.

Sorry As A Service is the winner of Garage48 Pärnu 2014. Their team is based in Tallinn, Estonia and Riga, Latvia and is simply passionate about creating more client success stories.

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Fanvestory (Estonia)

What if you could invest and earn long-term revenue from your favorite songs and artists? This is exactly what Fanvestory offers! They bring stock market prin-ciples, simplicity and transparency to the IP (intel-lectual property) industry, which has traditionally been a complicated and closed setting, far from the reach of fans.

They allow fans to buy a piece of music and be entitled to its future royalties while supporting the careers of the artists they believe in. For artists they provide money up-front for their copyrighted works with a unique VIP communication channel with their most loyal fans and supporters, which increases their pro-motional power.

Jobbatical (Estonia)

Jobbatical connects globally-minded companies with a community of ready-to-relocate business, technology, and creative professionals. Today is a perfect time for ideas to spread across borders. Skills are becoming global and the time is perfect for collaborative teams, where different nationalities enrich the culture. We believe that when you encourage smart people with different backgrounds to interact, great things happen. We believe the generation of today cares about work-ing on something meaningful above acquiring and accumulating ‘stuff’. Great talent is just a flight away. There are exceptional people ready to help your team make a difference. You just have to inspire them.

TransferGo (Lithuania)*

Another successful and inspiring FinTech figure from the Baltic states. Daumantas leads TransferGo, the fastest low cost international account-to-account money transfer service in the market. In 2017, Dau-mantas has made it into a prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe Finance list as one of the most promising and respected Europe’s FinTech advisors under 30.

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door” said Milton Berle. And in 2012, Daumantas Dvilinskas did just that. He had no money, but plenty of naive optimism and a lot of ambition. With his ambitious mindset and disregard to the obstacles ahead, he set off and created

* https://www.benzinga.com/fintech/16/06/8134224/

transfergo-a-lithuanian-startup-success-story

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what has become one of the most successful startups to emerge from the growing economy of Lithuania.

He and his co-founder set out to disrupt the interna-tional money transfer scene, a goal they have defi-nitely accomplished. The company has now surpassed the $1million revenue mark and has a dramatically growing employee base.

The company was established after Daumantas and his co-founder experienced difficulties when trying to make regular international payments for their more traditional import/export business. After a number of mistakes by their bank he decided there was a gap in the market for an alternative to banks when it came to transferring money overseas.

He wanted to create a business that offered a quick and

cost-effective process to transfer money that catered to the needs of its customers; TransferGo was born.

TransferGo’s international money transfers take less than a day, rather than the 2–7 days it generally takes banks. It also offers a very low exchange rate markup of 0.4–1.9%, rather than the 5% charged by banks. TransferGo is now a respected means of transferring money abroad and Daumantas is only looking forward.

Of course it wasn’t a simple operation – there are numerous obstacles to overcome for any startup.

Whilst the trust issues surrounding FinTech have proved great for fledgling companies to gain traction and attention in the financial system, these can often be as much of a deterrent or distraction as they are an attraction.

Vinted, (Lithuania)*/**

Back in 2008, its idea was born spontaneously in a party; the couple randomly stumbled into an idea about the platform, where people could trade their second-hand clothes. Today, Vinted is the world’s larg-est pre-loved fashion marketplace with a community of 20 million users in 10 countries, with 15 thousands members joining every day. Milda and Justas are cur-rently on a mission to make second hand the number one choice worldwide.

If you have a good idea – take risks without fear. To con-quer world markets is not as difficult as it might seems.

* https://www.nbforum.com/nbreport/vinted-founder-

from-a-shy-and-insecure-girl-to-a-global-clothing-player/

** https://startuolis.wordpress.com/2016/05/05/

he-success-story-of-the-biggest-startup-in-lithuania-vinted/

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International clothing exchange portal "Vinted” started it’s crazy success story a few years ago and became the biggest startup in Lithuania, when it was signed with an investment worth of 25 million euros. Today people login to their "Vinted’’ accounts not only in Lithuania and Western Europe, but also in the United States.

"Vinted” startup was created back in 2008 and had a name "Mano drabužiai” (engl. "My clothes”). Their main goal is to change people’s habits and opinion towards clothes shopping. Vinted hope is, that when people need to go and buy some clothes first of all, they will login to their Vinted account. Their mission is to change the habits of clothes shopping in the world.

Innovations are a must for a new startups. So when "Vinted” team decided to go for an international mar-kets they used the same methods and principles as

Lithuania. They created a mobile application for users in Germany, France, Austria, United Kingdom, Poland and Czech Republic countries and United States too. The investment they have made was not that expen-sive, but it was really successful. As the CEO Mantas Mikunckas said "If you need to change your busi-ness model for other markets extremely, it won’t be as effective and growing as much. In today’s world, you have to be very fast and your business has to to be very flexible in order to adapt fast. It is extremely important when talking about online businesses.”

The main reason why international investors became interested to invest into "Vinted” is that, their growth was not for a moment, people were actively and con-stantly creating their accounts and shopping through "Vinted”. In two years the growth of "Vinted” reached 1,000 percent. From all the international markets the

biggest and the most successful is in Germany, as it is one of the oldest markets, clothes market portal is more than 10 times bigger than in Lithuania, which is the smallest market of this project.

LinLiving*

Founder: Hanna Jörnhammar

Support funktion: UF (Ung Företagsamhet)**

Hanna started her entrepreneurship by putting price tags on and selling things she found at home. This drive strengthened at high school through UF entre-preneurship, when she started LinLiving in 2014, focusing on home textiles and custom clothing in 100% organic linen.

* www.linliving.se

** https://ungforetagsamhet.se/

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The products landed correctly and with Hanna’s great drive and fierce interest in e-commerce, the company’s sales have doubled annually since then. The move to Stockholm and thoughtful studies proved to be a good catalyst to instead invest wholeheartedly in the company, and soon the launch of your own shop is waiting.

Education

Linda Liukas (Finland)

Linda is an author and an illustrator from Finland. She is mostly known from her children’s picture book “Hello Ruby”. She got a funding from a Kickstarter campaign in February 2014, where the book gathered 380,000

dollars of preorders, and got published in 2015. The book focuses on technology and programming. Linda said that one of the main reasons to do this kind of book is that, we need to explain kids what the internet is, how it works and what can people find from there.

This book was a huge success, and was recognized widely around the world. People started asking Linda to come to talk to their countries about the story of Hello Ruby, programming and coding. At spring of 2017 Hello Ruby teaching philosophy won the biggest design service in Finland called “DIA Design Award”. Recently she has been travelling around Asia, mostly in China, where she is teaching in kindergartens and school. One of Linda’s favourite stories comes from Japan, where small kids come to say to her, that “Ruby” is their favourite character. Linda loves that small

boys can think that a girl is their role character in a technology world. Those kinds of things can change the world according to Linda.

Pekka Hyysalo (Finland)

At spring 2010 Pekka Hyysalo was one of the best freestyle skiers in the world. He was doing a movie about freestyle skiing with his friends in Northern Finland, Ylläs and filming for the day was already over for that day, but Pekka decided that he will go for the last jump of the day just for fun. The wind blew very hard and unluckily caught Pekka in his jump so that the he fell down from too high and landed on the ground in a totally bad position. Pekka was taken to the hospital, where the staff had to react quickly because it was a matter of life and death. Pekka fell

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into coma and woke up after couple of critical days to hear doctors say that he had a serious brain injury, which would affect heavily on Pekka’s moving, speak-ing and short term memory.

Pekka thought that after the rehabilitation he could go to ski again, but when doctors said that it is possible that he can’t ski ever again, Pekka fell into depression. He was thinking that he life is over, but somehow he realized that he can either lay down at the hospital all the time or he can give his best every day at reha-bilitation to get better. Pekka rose up and 6 months after the accident he could walk independently and after 11 months he tried skies for the first time again.

Now he has formed a brand called Fight Back, to help others suffering from brain injuries and spreading positive thinking and willpower around the world.

Fightback also increases awareness of safety equip-ments in sports and cheers up for any people who are in difficult situation in their lives.

“The best thing in attitude is that it doesn’t cost a thing. Now I travel around Finland and try to spread the same attitude to everyone.” © Pekka Hyysalo

Edurio (Latvia)

Another successful enterprise, created by young man in age of 26, is “Edurio”. It has been found in 2014 by ErnestsJenavs, which has been recognized as one of the young talents among “30 under 30” (2015) by Forbes Baltic.*

* http://forbes.lv/30under30/2015-2/

“Edurio” is Latvian company which aims to improve the quality of education by measuring the needs of students at schools. The product offered by “Edurio” is customized survey and data support that allows to evaluate school climate and culture, stakeholder – students’, teachers’ and parents’ – feedback, assess the needs, reach and engage with stakeholders on different levels and efficiently analyze data in order to make sense of non-academic data and use it to acknowledge the areas that needs improvement.** It is a modern way to save the resources on research work, replacing traditional paper questionnaires.

During the first 3 years company implemented “Edurio” to more than 300 schools in 5 different coun-

** https://edurio.com/

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tries*, developing the service that can be successfully exported and create not only the profit, but also the social value as education is the area that affects every-body. In 2016 “Edurio” has received record amount of financing from “Horizon 2020” – 1,86 million EUR**, so for 2 years schools from Latvia could use the ser-vices for free. Company is actively participating in other startup competitions and pitching events like “Creative Business Cup”, “TechChil Baltics”, “FiBan Pitching Night” etc. in order to expand in the market and gain the investments for development.

* http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/clients-partners/

consultancy-services/case-studies/edurio

** http://www.labsoflatvia.com/news/edurio-

attracts-record-large-grant-eur-1-86-million

New products & services

BEE IN (Latvia)

“BEE IN” is an innovation for food storage. It is made of biologically sustainable beeswax and cotton certified with Oekotex standard 100 certificate***. In wrap you

*** The STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX is a worldwide

consistent, independent testing and certification system

for raw, semi-finished, and finished textile products

at all processing levels, as well as accessory materials

used. Examples of articles that can be certified: raw

and dyed/finished yarns, woven and knitted fabrics,

accessories, such as buttons, zip fasteners, sewing

threads or labels, ready-made articles of various types

(garments of all types, domestic and household textiles,

bed linen, terry products and much more). Source:

can store bread, cheese, herbs, fruits, vegetables and it can be placed over small or large cans and bowls. “BEE IN” is natural alternative for plastic wrap (cling film) and foil, the material can be used up to one year. After use, it degrades in the nature and can be placed into compost.

The idea was born out of family business (Ieva’s dad is a beekeeper and mom creates natural bees wax candles). For two years the product was tested at home until it reached Latvian University Business Incubator, where the idea was made into a business. IevaSulutaura is a young entrepreneur, who started her business in age of 26. She is passionate about the “green thinking”

https://www.oeko-tex.com/en/business/certifications_

and_services/ots_100/ots_100_start.xhtml

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and promotes her idea as innovative, sustainable and eco-friendly solution for households around the world.

Young entrepreneur in two years’ time has finished Latvian Business Incubator with a grant for product manufacturing development. To improve the business and the knowledge about green industries she has been a part of Green Technology Incubator, graduated Nordea bank business school* and participated in Cli-mate Launchpad finals. Nevertheless, Ieva is always open for talking about green industries, therefore she has participated in discussion festival “LAMPA”, Business Radar, Young entrepreneurs conference and many more.

* https://www.festivalslampa.lv/event/user/lv/965/

VERI BERI 100% fruit stripes is unique and exclusive natural sweet. VERI BERI (Lithuania)

fruit stripes were created and now being produced by brother and sister Edgaras and Erika. They wanted to create a natural sweet that the market didn’t have. They wanted to create something special, something natural and unique.

In October 2012 a brother and sister started a family business with the brand name Veri Beri. Their idea was to manufacture exclusive, naturally sweetened “fruit strips” from fruit juice and puree without any added sugar, preservatives or artificial flavours. This type of premium sweet was not available in Lithuania or any of the Baltic States. The equipment was pur-chased using own capital. However, further business development required a significant volume of working capital. In 2013, the company took out a loan of EUR

23,000 from the EPF in order to cover rental costs and to buy raw materials for producing the fruit strips.

The owners considered several different possibilities for financing Veri Beri. Commercial bank loans were not available for the start-up, due to the requirements for business track record and collateral. The owners found information about EPF loans on the internet. This opportunity was very attractive to them, since this FI was designed particularly for startups. Also, the owners of the business belonged to an EPF priority group, i.e. young people. The business owners pre-pared the business plan required by the credit union themselves. They took advantage of the training on human resources in business provided under the EPF.

The EPF loan had a critical role in developing the family business Veri Beri. It matched the needs and opportu-

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nities of the start-up very well. The possibility of com-bining loans with other products provided by INVEGA was also very useful for developing the business from an initial idea. In the past two years, the family start-up established by the brother and sister team has grown to nine employees. The fruit strips are now sold in across Lithuania and are popular with customers due to their natural ingredients and unique taste. Veri Beri has recently started exporting its products to Estonia, Russia, Denmark, Poland and Spain.

Xpeditionen (Sweden)*

Founder: Pontus Johansson &EmelieRamini

* www.xpeditionen.com

Support funktion: Drivhuset**

Pontus and Emelie have been friends since high school. Now they are investing in the common ambition to start their own business

Our entrepreneurship began when we organized a music festival together. A rainy day thereafter we sat and started to bump ideas about what we think is fun. Here started the idea of “Expeditionen”. This is an e-commerce for fashion, interior and art.

The project is in the start-up phase. But it is based on a need that both feel strong for.

** http://www.drivhuset.se/goteborg ,

Yesbox www.yesboxgoteborg.se

E-commerce with fashion and lifestyle products is of course not something unique. There are many options for discerning consumers. Pontus Johansson and Emilie Ramini are very aware of that. They have realized that they need to offer something more. Something that is not really possible to touch. An overall experience.

“We want to create the feeling like when you get out of a store with the bag in your hand and feel shit what I long for testing this now,”

The initial capital consists of ideas, creativity, own time and a burning interest - but not money.

“It’s about thinking freely. It sits deep with us. We have no money, how do we solve it then? There is always a solution to everything”

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It is Mariah Ben Salem Dynehäll, CEO of the Drivhuset in Gothenburg, which showed Pontus and Emile the way to Yesbox. She stood up as a business coach when Pontus and Emile contacted her and asked for help.

“Before we met her, we were naive, we thought we needed a business coach to get the school’s approval to do the internship in this way. But when we met her, we noticed how good she is at getting us to focus on the right things, how to think. It’s absolutely amazing!

Flowcup* (Sweden)

Founder: Diana Lidforsen

Support funktion: Drivhuset Malmö**

For over a year, Diana has worked on his project Flow-

* www.flowcup.se

** http://www.drivhuset.se/malmo

cup. The start was that she saw a need for smoother menstruation cup for women and decided to grab it. With the help of the Drivhuset in Malmö, Malmö Uni-versity and Lund University, she was able to launch the Flowcup on July 1 this year.

The need that Diana noticed among women was a menstruation cup that was softer, more comfortable and had a shorter tap in the bottom. In addition to facilitating women in her own geographical prox-imity, she decided early to do something for women a bit away.

“During the trip with Flowcup I met many charities where they testified about terrible living conditions for girls around the world, girls who do not go to school at the time. When I heard all those stories it became so obvious. She decided to donate a menstruation

cup to girls and women in vulnerable countries, for each cup she sold.

"It feels quite right. And that feeling, customers also seem to feel. They think it’s fun to be able to help another woman by buying a menstruation cup."

Recently, she left the first 300 donated cups to the foundation and partner Star for Life, who then make sure the cups get where they are needed.

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Results of online questionnaireResearch sample of online questionnaire

The online survey starts with the core concept about entrepreneurial mindset and is followed

by examination of the personal characteristics of an entrepreneur. The main focus of the online survey was to keep focused, clear and short to keep youth’s attention and participation till the very end of the online survey. For that reason it consisted of 6 ques-tions related to the research topic and 6 demographical data questions. Initial screening questions were used in the questionnaire to determine most important values and concept proves for the partners, while

demographical data was used to analyse homogeneity of the group and changes, if any, related to the age group or any other demographic differences. Initially, analysis use country specific approach.

Responses were accepted from qualified respondents until the final deadlines – 22 of January, which was reached by final partnering country. Average time of completion for participating respondents was 03:58 minutes; time for completion by tablets is shorter - 02:44 minutes, while completion on regular PC’s was 04:06 and for smartphones – 03:57. From the device

perspective, 71% of responses have been submitted by smartphones, 28% by PC’s and laptops and 1% by tablets. The response rate is 46%.

A total of 312 questionnaires were fully completed and in total 683 unique visits made. Analysis is based on 100% completed responses. Latvian respondents in total were 107, Lithuanian – 46, Estonian – 54, Fin-land has collected 61 reply and 42 replies came from Sweden. There have been collected 2 other replies, where country was not mentioned, hence final sample set consisted of 301 replies.

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Characterisation of Latvian sample set. Age groups: The dominant age group is 19–25 years old and is repre-sented by 43.3%, followed by age groups of 15–18 years old with 36.7% and 16.9% of the group of 26–30 years old. The smallest groups of respondents were youth under 15 and another age group - over 30 years with 2 representatives in each group. Gender: The gender distribution ratio is unequal: female – 89.7%, and male – 10.3%. Level of education: 35.5% of respondents are involved in studies at university; 34.6% are enrolled in schools and 10.3% are college students, while 19.6% have responded that they are not involved in the study process. Occupation: The occupation has been evaluated by belonging to several groups – employee, student, entrepreneur or unemployed. It has to be admitted that there was no category ‘’pupil’’, so attend-ees of the schools marked them as students. 48.5% of respondents have replied that they are students, respondents, who were employed, were 41.1%, while 5.7% were entrepreneurs and 4.7% stated that that they are not employed. Urban or rural living place: Concerning respondents’ belonging to the rural or urban living place, the majority or 83.2% of respon-

dents are from the urban environment and the rest 16.8% are from rural settings.

Characterisation of Lithuanian sample set. Age groups: The dominant age group similarly like in Latvia was 19–25 years old and is represented by 69.6%, followed by several small age groups: 15–18 year olds with 15.2%, 13.1% of 26–30 year olds and 2.1% of age group over 30 year olds. Gender: The gender distri-bution ratio is also unequal, similarly like in Latvian sample set: female – 74.0%, and male – 26.0%. Level of education: 56.6% of respondents are involved in studies at university; 17.4% are enrolled at schools and another 17.4% stated that they are enrolled in college. There are 8.6% of respondents, who are not involved in the study process. Occupation: Since major age group is over 18, it is also reflected in the area of occupation. Only 71.8% of respondents have replied that they are students and 21.7% that they are employees. Comparing to Latvian sample set, ratio of students in Lithuanian sample set is higher. Besides that 4.3% stated that they are unemployed and 2.2% responded that they are entrepreneurs. Urban or rural

living place: Concerning respondents’ belonging to the rural or urban living place, the majority or 78.2% are from the urban environment and the rest (21.8%) are from rural settings.

Characterisation of Estonian sample set. Age groups: The dominant age group in comparison to Latvia and Lithuania is 15–18 years old and is represented by 48.2%, followed by age groups of 19–25 year olds with 38.9%. The smallest groups were in age category 26–30 years with 11.1% and 1.8% represented by age group over 30 years. Gender: The gender distribution ratio is unequal: female made up 68.5%, and male 31.5%. Level of education: 40.7% of respondents were involved in studies at school; 35.2% were enrolled at universities and 16.7% were college students, while 7.4% have responded that they are not involved in the study process. Occupation: A majority of respon-dents replied that they are students – 70.4 %, while employed were 22.2% and 7.4% were entrepreneurs. Urban or rural living place: The majority or 77.8% of respondents are from the urban environment and the rest – 22.2% are from rural settings.

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Characterisation of Finish sample set. Age groups: The dominant age group was over 30 years old and repre-sented by 44.3%. In this regard, data collected did not completely match the exact target group and partly represent opinion of the age group over the planned target audience. Next age group, which follows, is 26–30 years old with representation of 32.8%. The next group is 19–25 years old – 19.7% and youth 15–18 year olds – 3.2%. Gender: The gender distribution ratio is unequal similar to other sample sets: female – 65.6%, and male – 34.4%. Level of education: 62.3% were involved in studies at university; 19.7% were in the college, while not in the education process, while 11.5% responded that they are not in the educational process currently and are enrolled in colleges and 6.5% were enrolled at schools. The interesting fact is that is that even large sample set is over 30, they are involved in studies at the university. Occupation: fol-lowing fact, that a large part of the sample set was over 30 years old, 49.3% of respondents were employees, while 40.9% of respondents have replied that they are students and 9.8% stated that they are entrepreneurs. Urban or rural living place: The majority or 77.0% of

respondents are from the urban environment and the rest – 23.0% are from rural settings.

Characterisation of Swedish sample set. Age groups: The dominant age group is youth 19–26 years old and is represented by 50%, followed by two equal in the size age groups of 15–18 years old and 26–30 year olds represented by with 19.1%. The smallest groups are made of respondents over 30 years with 7.1% repre-sentation and 4.7% of youth under 15. Gender: The gender distribution ratio is comparing with other sample sets is equal and contrary to rest of sample sets is dominated by male representatives with 52.4% and female representation – 47.6 %. Level of educa-tion: Majority of respondents were enrolled at college – 31.0%; it was followed by two equal numbers of replies with 23.8% of the ones enrolled at university or not involved in the study process. Only 21.4% of respondents were attending schools. Occupation: The highest level of youth representatives stated that they are students – 45.2%, followed by group of respon-dents, who stated that they are employees – 42.9%. Small group of respondents - 7.1% stated that they are

employed and 4.7% stated that they are unemployed. Urban or rural living place: The majority or 73.8% are from the urban environment and the rest 26.2% are from rural settings.

Overall characterization of sample sets. Age groups: The sample sets are different in terms of distribution according to age group. Finish age group has a large batch of respondents over 30 years. In comparison, in Estonia dominant age group was 15–18 year olds, while in other countries, dominant group was the one, which was initially targeted 19–25 years old. In this regard, age distribution should be perceived as satisfactory with some deviations to the age groups outside main target group. Gender: As it is usual in the online questionnaires in the Baltic Sea Region, gender split was unequal with predominance of female repre-sentatives. The only exception was Sweden, where in general total number of respondents was very equal with minimal predominance of male representatives. Level of education: Level of education correlates with the ages of specific sample sets; hence, in the sets, where young people were dominant, schools were dominant.

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However, the interesting point about Finland is, where even age group was over 30, still a large amount of respondents were enrolled in the university. Occupa-tion: Occupation also is very much related to the age group dominance. However, comparing sample sets the interesting trends might be observed in terms of over-all characteristics of respondents, that major groups are students or employees with very low percentage of entrepreneurs and unemployed. Finally, urban or rural living place, showed the predominance of respondents, who were living in the urban environment.

Analysis of online questionnaires in 5 countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden and Finland

Analysis of online questionnaires will be made as a single data set, not making division by countries. While, from one point, it gives more general informa-tion, it still represents important opinion of countries as a single, united view and helps understand general trends. More reasonable analysis can be rather done by

age distribution, but not by countries and might be more interesting for academic research, while objective of this study, provide trends for perception of support and entrepreneurial orientation of youth within region.

As previously described, the online questionnaire consists of 2 parts: first part is concentrated on the entrepre-neurial mindset, including perception of support, while second part is demo-graphical data. The first question (Q1) of the section: “Do you believe you are entrepreneurially minded”.

According to the results of questionnaires, the majority of respondents believe that they are entrepreneurially minded. From the perspective of current occupation, majority were students or employees, hence, we can assume that majority of respondents to some extent would be willing in the future or already now are in process of entrepreneurial activities. Smaller amounts of respondents are rather not entrepreneurial or do

not see that characteristic at all as part of their per-sonality. These results are partly contradictory to regular statistics, which believes that only around 10–20% of population are able to be entrepreneurs. In the light of so high percentage of entrepreneurially minded youth – two options are possible: a) over-all “state of the art” is changing and moving from the employee to the self-employed and entrepreneur direction; b) majority of the respondents might have

Source: Developed by authors, based on questionnaire data

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an entrepreneurial mindset, but they never will take a real steps to start own enterprise. According to the view of partner from Sweden, there could be also an another explanation of high percentage of entrepre-neurial youths: the fact that they are more keen on answering questions about entrepreneurship. Those without entrepreneurial mindset/interest are not that interested in engaging in this field.

These findings might need more detailed analysis and could be researched in upcoming projects.

The next question analyses, which characteristics youth believes are most important for young entrepreneurs. In this question, more as one, but not more as three replies were allowed and the question statement was following (Q2): “Which are the most important 3 personal char-acteristics a young entrepreneur should have?”.

60% or absolute majority has indicated that the most important characteristic is creativity, while followed by “Initiative” with 40% and also problem solving, risk taking and responsibility. The gained result reflect to

some extent also “Future of the jobs report”, produced by World Economic Forum, which states that by 2020 main top three skills are going to be: Complex problem solving, critical thinking and creativity. Since report does not analyse specifically entrepreneur-ial skills, only some relevant trends might be taken into account as supportive towards online questionnaire findings. Following characteristics also have been mentioned as important by the respondents: leadership – 33%, networking and communication – 33%, flexibility – 25%, critical thinking – 24% and self-control 17%. Overall, if forms a typology that an entrepreneur has to be creative and has initiative as one of the main traits of his/her personality.

Next question has inspected, where most likely entre-preneurial skills should be acquired. The formulation of the question (Q3) is the following: Where would it be most relevant to acquire skills to become an entre-preneur? Several replies per question were allowed.

Source: Developed by authors, based on questionnaire data

While analysing Q3, it was found that majority of respon-dents believe that specialised courses and college/uni-versity are major structures, where the entrepreneurial education has to be acquired. Relatively surprising is the fact, that previously mentioned both, are followed by the statement that entrepreneurial skills might be

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acquired by working with others at coworking spaces. That clearly indicates the shift of youth, interested to work in a new, trendy way – at coworking spaces. The coworking selection is followed by traditional reply that skills have to be acquired at the workplace. A relatively large amount of respondents also believe that skills have to be acquired very early – already at school and also that non-traditional forms are relevant to acquire these skills. Relatively low amount of respondents replied that these skills have to be acquired via online courses. Taking into account availability of MOOCs, it is unclear why generation of young people are not keen on online learning and are relatively conservative. In accordance with Swedish partner’s view it might be due to the vocab-ulary used. Such terminology as “Online training” is a thing that attracts young people, but terminology and technology within this field changes quit fast and the risk is that the right vocabulary wasn’t used might be the explanation. As example terminology like “learning platform” or “knowledge platform” instead might the right terms to be used. This point might be interesting research for future projects.

To understand deeper support needed to start entrepreneurship, not only from educational and skills perspective, next question has researched support forms. The formulation of the questions are the following: “What kind of support is the most encouraging for young people to start their own enterprises?” In the question, multiple choices have been allowed. The most important type of support, which is valued by the poten-tial entrepreneurs, is opportunity to meet investors. This option is followed closely and equally divided selection of start-up trainings, which should be held by private organisations/investors and government. It raises the question, that even there are plenty of courses available in the Baltic Sea region market, most probably potential entrepreneurs are looking for a set of specific courses, directly targeted to start-ups. It has to be admitted in context of this research, terminology of ‘’start-up’’ is used not in the classical form, but is applied to any new, potential organisation.

The support mechanisms of Q4 are followed by fol-lowing support types: competition/’’start-up’’ bat-tles – 24%, exhibitions of start-ups and networking – 23%, support from municipalities – 21%, accessible coworking spaces – 16%, specially designed Startup

Source: Developed by authors, based on questionnaire data

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Law – 14%, crowdfunding platforms – 13%. The interesting finding in the area of support types is that crowdfunding support is mentioned as one of the least needed support type. In a view of Swed-

ish partner, might be that crowd-funding is a source of support at a later stage in the process, that the youths at the first steps need more general support and that the financial part will be in question first when the idea is developed.

While, crowdfunding is also a way to get financial support, which was mentioned and evaluated high in terms of opportunities to meet investors, in the form of ‘’online investors’’ respondents are not so keen and interested. This finding might be researched further on in

the upcoming projects. Besides that finding, also should be made analysis in direction of coworking. Since, from one side, high percentage has mentioned that coworking is place to get new skills, but from the perspective of support, coworking places are ranked very low. It might mean, that there is no problem with availability of coworking spaces or

that there are some contradictions in the replies of respondents.

Next question (Q5) analyses perception of environ-ment to start enterprise. The question is the following: “Do you think the environment for starting a com-pany in your country is supportive?” Only one reply was allowed for each respondent. From the countries perspective, only Finland had a bit higher amount of the positive replies, meaning that respondents were more convinced that there is supportive environment for starting a business. The rest of the countries had very close to the data to the overall findings. Hence, country specific analysis was skipped.

From the image above, it can be observed that 53% believe that environment to start business in their country is ‘’supportive’’ or ‘’rather supportive’’. Hover relatively large amount or 35% in total believe that it is rather unsupportive or were absolutely con-vinced that it is unsupportive. 12% were not able to evaluate it. The question indicates that overall perception of environment is polarised and there

Source: Developed by authors, based on questionnaire data

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are no major changes in perception of youth, even in terms of country specific analysis. That clearly indicates, that even countries might have different legislation, support tools and overall economic situations in the countries, it does not affect too much overall perception of youth of the support environment. This ques-tion is good starting point to analyse deeper country specific perceptions and reasons, why

environment is not perceived as supportive enough.

Final question (Q6) was created to evaluate geograph-ical location of possible start of the business. The formulation of the question was following: “Where would you rather start your business?”.

According to the view of respondents, majority of them would start a business in their country, however almost 1/5 would be interested to start in Europe. A small amount of respondents would be willing to start in the Baltic Sea Region or outside Europe. It has to be admitted that this question has some technical mistake, since there was no option, which would

allow respondent to select the option that he/she is not interested to start a business at all.

It should be admitted, that positive aspect is relatively high willing to start business in Europe. It indicates a trend that youth might become more open to moving around, search for relevant business support tools, possibilities, which is easier within European Union.

Source: Developed by authors, based on questionnaire data

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Overall summary of the online questionnaire findings

As a summary of the online questionnaire following statements can be made:

• Youth perceive themselves as entrepreneurially minded;

• Such traits as creativity, problem solving and initiative are most important of the potential entrepreneurs from the youth sector;

• Academic infrastructure still plays an important role, while acquiring entrepreneurial skills, however, non-formal and practical approaches are getting also very important;

• Some forms of education e.g. online are surprisingly low ranked;

• While, from the support tools meetings with investors ranked high, crowdfunding options – ranked low; no clear clue about the difference,

while both options are related to the attraction of finance; This situation in accordance with view of one of the partner’s might be driven by so called ‘’smart money’’ concept, meaning that investor is coming with own knowledge, skills and contacts, while crowdfunding is just financial support;

• Very specific support times e.g. specific trainings and grants are still ranked high in terms of possible support tools;

• Overall environment for business is perceived as polarised with no major changes depending on the country;

• Majority of the respondents would be rather interested to start a business in their own country, even environment was found polarised from the support perspective;

• Some of the findings are relevant starting points for deeper analysis

• Some of findings are contradictory, which means that deeper analysis with relevant methodologies has to be applied.

Overall, this study can be used only for overall trends of the perception and self-assessment of youth towards entrepreneurial orientations and percep-tion of support. More detailed and methodologically advanced researched have to be used to support or deny existing findings.

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Focus groups with essential data are important data pieces to get valuable insights. For that reason,

to hear the voice of developers and educators focus groups were organized in each country, except Esto-nia. The stakeholders involved have a daily activities with the young, potential entrepreneurs – an “eye on good and bad ways” of supporting youth for tomor-row’s world. We have specifically targeted persons who have been involved with education, youth work as well as innovation.

Efforts are needed for a lot of things, as stated at the beginning, and through this report. And to both try to create a measurability at macro level (because sta-

Voice of educators and developers – Focus groupstistics and our current measuring systems are a big question not only for us who try to provide support systems and structures, but also for the young people, in who’s eyes the future often looks even more unsure.

So it’s also about furthering a more entrepreneurial society in general – not only talking about start-ups and high-growth companies. It’s also remembering our growing population, big lay-downs in many coun-tries and the ones that are at the verge of wondering “if” and “could” they do something really important.

Four main questions, were asked during the focus group with some option, in case of availability of time:

1. Current status of entrepreneurial training for youth in your country?

2. What actions should be taken?

3. Views on Nordic/Baltic co-operation and how it should be developed?

4. Current status of entrepreneurial training for youth?

Everyone strongly agreed, that one main challenge for entrepreneurial training for youth is the focus on technical aspects of entrepreneurship (financial

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management and accounting, business models, taxes and law etc.), and not enough discussion about the mind-set it takes to be an entrepreneur. Especially for young people, entrepreneurship as a career option doesn’t always seem like a lucrative option. It often looks “difficult, expensive and risky”. The discussion of what entrepreneurship means in regards to ones identity, personality and as a way of life is a perspec-tive that is seldom touched upon. Even though that can be seen as the primary bases on which decisions about entrepreneurship are made on individual or group level. If the passion and will are there, people tend to find the answers to technicalities.

Social skills, networks and other “soft” skills are part of the entrepreneurial mind-set, that current entre-preneurial training seldom focuses on enough. These are also traits that can hardly be taught in classrooms alone, but still deserve attention for example in the context of practical training.

Mentors and coaches from outside educational institu-tions are valued, though they are not always the best

pedagogies that understand where the young people are in their development. The education of educators (or perhaps more coaches and mentors) is an issue that was regarded of interest for co-operation in the Baltic Sea area. Different countries have slightly different approaches to this, though all seem to share a system-atic process. Sharing methods, tools and approaches between within the BSR would be valuable.

Closer co-operation between education and industry is needed in order to produce support that is balanced in all of these ways. Also, famous business people can have a big impact and provide inspiration for youth especially. There are also specific needs men-tioned, like the interests young people have to learn-ing about how to use social media and using that in ones business. Marketing and selling skills are other bottle-necks or skills gaps.

All in all – there needs to be a balanced and systematic approach for understanding market needs, getting a feel from “real” businesses/industry but having the ability to critical thinking as well besides social

skills and building of networks between different stake-holders. A system, which also provides oppor-tunities for light testing, piloting and also failing within a secured environment. Even though there are support structures and services, they tend to be scattered and fragmented. For a young person who might not consider entrepreneurship as his/her first career choice, taking the trouble to find out about the different possibilities can pose a critical barrier.

Learning-by-doing, testing and piloting, technical and “sort-skills” balance, learning to get a brader per-spective to future potential as well as gain a sense of responsibility, accountability and patience are vital. In addition it is especially important to build confi-dence, where for instance inspiring success stories and examples are of big value.

What actions should be undertaken?

The most important issue is to fill in the gaps in the already existing entrepreneurial training courses (Young

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Entrepreneur) at the high school. The education today is too “technical” and they asks for more connection to the real business life, i.e. when it comes to finding business models that can be sustainable (how to do that), learning how to build networks and how to do marketing in real life on the new channels like social media.

For instance Swedish focus group suggested the fol-lowing measures:

1. A module to develop the soft skills needed for an entrepreneur, creativity, courage, social, risk-taking and drive, and to translate this into reality. For example, having a networking course because Swedes are in general quite bad at networking.

2. A module to develop the knowledge on how to transfer the UF to the real world, how to make it to a viable and sustainable company.

3. A module for a mentoring scheme for young entrepreneurs

Lithuania stressed increasing the level of motivation, and seeing entrepreneurship as something to strive for step-by-step, for instance testing their ideas in a safe environment and a small seed money first. The mind-set for entrepreneurship could and should start as early as possible, more like an integrated approach in pursuing ones ideas. Also Latvia stressed the idea of a “trial version for a company” system, that would allow, within certain boundaries, to legitimately test fresh business ideas up to a specified limit without taxes or other obligations related to running an actual enter-prise. These test periods could be included already in the training program in order to ensure proper sup-port along the way. There should in general be more opportunities to include these sort of testing and learning (including competitions or other practical activities to be included in the studies, for instance in thesis or doctoral research studies.

The Finnish group also rose the question of why we seldom look further than the BSR when looking for benchmarks or learning opportunities and networks. Shouldn’t we be more focused on building a “we”

between our close neighbors, with whom it might then together make sense to explore global markets. In this sense, building a common brand of the Nordic/Baltic region could provide added value, as well as raise interest within the different participant groups. This perspective might also be valuable in regards to training of trainers (teachers, business coaches, mentors and other service providers). In other words collect, conceptualize and coordinate the different opportunities and special skills that we have within our region, and offer a chance for students, teachers and/or start-ups to take part in our trainings and accelerator services.

Eye on Nordic/Baltic co-operation

Nordic/Baltic co-operation was regarded as important in all countries. Currently it is done mainly through different projects, which despite good results and skills developments has caused the co-operation to lack sustainability and hence systematic development of support structures. Projects come and go, and can

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easily seem fragmented and hard to find from the users’ point of view.

Within this discussion rose also the needs to focus on services, agreements that produce sustainable solutions between the different service providers. This could mean for instance agreements of using each other’s facilities, meeting spaces or mentors in agreed boundaries, as well as networking events and mediator services between different interest groups. This kind of co-operation could also be promoted between student run entrepreneurial societies.

Nordic-Baltic co-operation was also seen as a possi-bility to share stories, get to know each other, build common mind-sets and understanding also in regards to investors and decision-makers. Strengthening our common brand and making visible to co-operation and networks we have as a whole, adds to the cred-ibility of us all. Within our region, but especially in regards to global audiences and target groups.

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Conclusions & suggestions for actions

Plenty of entrepreneurship support initiatives have arisen in a last decade in Estonia, Latvia, Lithua-

nia, Sweden and Finland, enhancing young people to develop their practical knowledge on development of products and services, research for innovation and new networks and connections. Step by step young people are introduced with entrepreneurship opportunities in earlier age at schools and informal camps, however this is only beginning and new long-lasting activi-ties have to be introduced on a bigger scale, ensuring accessibility and professional consultancy to empower young leaders. Inspiration and success stories play

an important role in stimulation of entrepreneurship development, alongside with practical knowledge on business processes and competence development.

Efforts should be made to increase knowledge devel-opment and dissemination, research and to create neutral platforms where private, public and civil-ian actors can meet and share knowledge and drive the area forward. Focusing on the development and sharing of knowledge of methods and models for match-making, partnerships and opportunities for collaboration, we believe is crucial for development

at all stages, and especially in the implementation phase that requires endurance. We also see a great need to gather and share the methods, models and initiatives that are successful in the various phases to make more success.

More knowledge is needed about cross-sectoral coop-eration that provides mutual benefits, clear struc-ture of cooperation between social entrepreneurs, civil society and the public sector, as well as greater awareness of successful scaling models locally and globally. Moreover, the established cooperation net-

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works should show sustainability and involve new partnerships for long-lasting cooperations. We see a need to strengthen the leadership and business spirit of social entrepreneurs and companies, as well as the knowledge of innovation promoters about social innovation and social entrepreneurship. One major challenge is that the existing system does not always have enough knowledge or the right structure to support and develop social entrepreneurs and inno-vations. At the same time, many social companies and entrepreneurs have a great need for enhanced skills. Both expertise in business consulting, lead-ership and organization, but also digitalization, law and procurement. Here innovation promoters and intermediaries play a crucial role, but must be given the right conditions for success.

Social innovation and entrepreneurship

The overall support system needs to be developed to better promote social entrepreneurship and inno-vation. Incubators and innovation promoters, the

innovation offices linked to the higher education institutions and many large companies are engaged in corporate venture capital, however the distribution and access to incubation and consultancy are far not equal for young people.

We therefore want to see several parallel processes here. For example, finance certain actors to specialize in social entrepreneurship and social innovation. In addition, there are several intermediaries we identified that need to be developed with the aim of reaching out on a larger scale. They are effective tools for building networks and long-term support structures for the sector, as we have seen successful examples abroad.

Policy Social entrepreneurship often moves in the border between private, public and civilians and there-fore often encounter new obstacles and “meet” the public rule and framework from other angles than many other actors. There is a need for a better ability and opportunity for the policy to identify and handle unintended effects of existing and future policies and regulations. Politics can also be a good example

of working with innovative methods of developing regulations and methods.

A number of barriers to social innovation exist in the lack of coordination between policy actors, but also between the various interest groups in the social innovation system: networks, financiers, incubators, etc. Knowledge of social innovation is divided between institutional actors and levels as a consequence of social innovation being found in a variety of policy fields. This can generate overlapping and inconsistent policies. At the same time, the system is open to inno-vations and the public sector is also open to adopting new solutions. However, much of the legislation is a bit behind. Although new, more efficient and better ways to perform things exist and have been tested and the public wants to implement it, it is not due to current regulations and policies. The lack of a suitable company form is another obstacle. Many organize themselves as non-profit associations, but then have tax-related challenges and, for example, can not deduct VAT. By being a limited company, the contractor signals that they want to go with profit. Today, the debate is easy

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in work-integrated social companies, because it is easy to touch, concrete and can be counted on.

Entrepreneurship in education

We also support strongly the recommendations made in the EU-funded CENTRES – Creative Entrepreneur-ship in Schools *-project, coordinated by British Coun-cil in Poland in partnership with several Nordic and other European partners.

The education sector should be more effective in devel-oping a structured continuum of opportunities which lead to greater opportunity in the workforce. This will require greater industry partnership, a blur-ring of educational and enterprise activities, and a balance between technical training and equipping young people with holistic skills in communication,

* https://www.britishcouncil.pl/en/events/creative-

entrepreneurship-schools-findings-and-futures

collaboration and problem-solving. In Europe, we need to see more of and an improved quality across the following:

1. Creative business-incubators to provide to schools and non-formal education programmes additional assistance and coaching for young people and introduce to them work and services of business-incubators.

2. Creative mentors’ networks to work across schools and in business incubators – providing a consistency of advice and guidance and brokering links between creative businesses and schools.

3. Creative entrepreneurship development hubs to deliver out of school activities (e.g. mini-company programmes, start-up programmes, work-related learning, weekend schools etc.)

4. Brokered creative investment and potential fiscal incentives for creative firms as a CSR and talent

recruitment strategy. This is to broker structured engagement for firms in schools, targeting creative entrepreneurship activities and readying young people for future employment.

Formal and informal entrepreneurial education should become an important and compulsory part of every member state’s educational system. Every secondary school student should participate in at least one informal entrepreneurship educational pro-gramme (e.g. a mini-company programme, such as ENTRUM’s start-up programme, Aflatun). Dedicated creative entrepreneurship facilities such as incuba-tors, talent development projects, R&D with industry partners should be set up in educational settings. Creative Enterprise curricula offering structured learning and accreditation would also help to raise the life chances of young people across Europe.

The European Commission Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan sets out an agenda where entrepreneur-ial education and creative methods should became a compulsory part of training and development for as

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many teachers as possible. In addition, programmes that enable links to be brokered between schools and businesses (e.g. creative apprenticeship programmes; or the co-design of creative entrepreneurship teaching with businesses and teachers collaborating) should be scaled up. This will enable teachers to work in partnership with industry as a way of building con-fidence and improving understanding of industry needs, and of bringing industry into direct contact with young people.

81 Summary of SWOT:s

Strengths

There are a number of NGO’s that provide free counselling and business support for furthering entrepreneurship within the youth sector,which

makes overall ecosystem relatively strong in the countries studiedThe JA (Junior Achievement) activities have spread across the Nordic and

Baltic countries, reaching a large level of youth across, providing considerable impact towards entrepreneurial education from the young years already

Especially the Baltic countries have invested in providing a supportive operating environment for entrepreneurship by creating a variety of

different national and EU supported programs. This can also be seen in the growing interest towards entrepreneurship within youth

Weaknesses

Financial support is fragmented and often project-based. There is a need for continuity.Small domestic markets require international know-how for entrepreneursThere is still a need to strengthen the role and share of entrepreneurial subjects at all school levels, probably as elective subject, where availability of this subject has to be expandedNeed to improved skills of teachers and support providers of entrepreneurial mindset, as well as strengthen co-operation for instance in the form of mentorship programmes with entrepreneurs as practical, hand-on approach

Opportunities

Available funding instruments provide good opportunities to further entrepreneurial learning and start of business

operations in the region, however, these might be more beneficial towards specific enterprises (e.g. rural, social, micro)

Governmental interest to support entrepreneurship within the youth sector is high, however, more structured approach at

national and municipal level is expected in the regionThere are a number of good practices to learn from across the region,

providing opportunities for sustainable structures and models

Threats

Cuts in public funding affect the NGO sector, which has been in a key role in implementing support activities and projects related towards youth entrepreneurshipSmall domestic markets put pressure on early internationalizationProject funding doesn’t always support sustainability of good practices and modelsBusiness support is still technically oriented, where personal support and soft skills are key especially for young entrepreneurs

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Appendix The online survey form of “Entrepreneurial Mindset

Development Within Youth Sector” project

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