Our consortium has implemented an Erasmus + KA2 strategic partnerships project (Youth Field) called ‘SPINENT’ (https://spinent.eu/) that encourages young people to become technology focused sport entrepreneurs in 2018-2019. In the project SPINENT, a research was conducted to find out the educational needs of 200 young people on sport entrepreneurship. Interviews and focus group meetings with education planners, youth workers and academics were held. At the end of the project, an interactive guide, toolkit and online training course were developed to promote young people become technology-focused sport entrepreneurs. Then, these training materials were tested with the participation of 10 young entrepreneur candidates with the 5-day transnational learning activity organised in Murcia, Spain.
Currently, our consortium have develped a new project called “SPINENT 2.0: Mentor Up, Scale Up! Online Mentoring Platform for Young Sport Entrepreneurs”, which is the continuation of the SPINENT project and will increase its impact. In line with all of the above-mentioned background, the project (SPINENT 2.0) is focused on technological entrepreneurship in sport, physical activity and wellbeing.
The overall objectives of SPINENT 2.0 are to:
• contribute to innovative approaches to youth entrepreneurship through mentorship opportunities, pre-incubator programs and attractive educational resources in line with individual needs and expectations;
• contribute to encourage greater allocation of financial resources for sport / wellbeing entrepreneurship through long-term positive impact on young people, related participants and organisations.
The special aims of the project are to:
• support young entrepreneur candidates by guiding and accelerating them through the development of the innovative mentoring platform and engage into intensive dissemination and exploitation of existing intellectual outputs (interactive guideline, toolkit and online training course) produced in the SPINENT project;
• promote the technological entrepreneurship among young people through local and transnational activities that will encourage them to put ideas into practice in sport and wellbeing sectors.
The direct target group of the project is potential young entrepreneur candidates (18-30 aged) including at risk for social exclusion (unemployed young people, early school leavers, young people who are out of the education and labour market, young refugees etc.) in participant countries. The final beneficiaries of the project are young entrepreneurs, youth workers/educators, youth organisations, lecturers, start-ups, accelerators and incubation centers, innovation and technology centers/networks, universities and research centers and investors across the Europe.
The project consists of the following main work packages (M = Month):
WP-1: Develop of Technology-Focused Online Mentoring Platform (M2-M8)
WP-2: Development of Guidelines of Best Practices on SportsTech and Wellbeing (M2-M5) Companies/Startups
WP-3: Local Actions to Promote and Encourage Young People (M8-M12)
WP-4: Piloting: Transnational Pre-incubator Program (learning activity) and Mentoring Activities for Young People (M13-M14)
With the implementation of the above work packages, the following intellectual outputs will be developed:
IO-1: Technology-Focused Online Mentoring Platform for Young Entrepreneurs (Who are Interested in Sport, Physical Activity and Wellbeing)
IO-2: Guidelines on Best Practices of Technology Oriented Sports Entrepreneurship
Expected Results After Completion of the Project in the Target Groups:
– Young people who have developed an understanding of the entrepreneurship skills
– Young people who have better understanding European sports entrepreneurship ecosystem
– Young people who can communicate with technological sports entrepreneurship stakeholders and mentors
– Young people who have developed advanced understanding of new technologies and the transformation of these technologies into commercial products and services
– Young people who can use the bases of technological sports entrepreneurship
– Young people who can develop and manage sports technology projects
– Young people who have developed an understanding of the needs of the market
– Young people with skills and competence in the development, testing and commercialisation of innovative products and services
– Young people who have developed an understanding of modern business models
