Growing ideas, workshops, visit, contacts, networking, fun…and an amazing amount of energy! Every participant got to experience this when Entrepreneurship through networking week was arranged in Malmö 19-26 April 2013 by Centrum för Publikt Entreprenörskap. Participants for the week came from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Slovenia.
”With about 40 youths in the ages of 18-30 who all have an idea that contributes to the social development. We took part of a week full of inspiration about social innovation, ideas about how to create social impact and study visits that were examples of exactly that. Everything had been thought about and could be linked to every point of the agenda. The main goals were of course that we would grow in our ideas, get a network from the people we met, exchange our ideas and maybe find new ideas together.” writes Diana Malm, one of the participants in her blog after the week.
Alma Sandberg, project coordinator at Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Emma Johnsson communicator for Centre for Public Entrepreneurship had the main responsibility for organizing the week.
Alma Sandberg has herself started several organizations and organized different kind of projects. ”My motto is you can’t choose where you were born, but you can choose what you do with your life. I think it depends a lot where young people live, how they see their opportunities.” Specially in scandinavia it has never been force to try yourself becuse of the social security. This might be one of the reasons why it has not always been so popular to start own. ”Image of entrepreneuship is anyhow chaning in Sweden – they have even started to teach at school how to became an entrepreneur.”
”Even if you never would realize your plans you’ll learn new skills when you work with your idea. Entrepreneurial experience is good job experience – something what employers definetily will appreciate.”
Anna-Mari Österlund, 25, would like to provide useful activities for students who hadn’t got summerjob. ”Workshops will help students to survive in the working life, figure out what they’re good at and how they can achieve their goals. Finish employent agency doesn’t have anything to offer for students who hadn’t graduated yet – so without this they wouldn’t have anything to do during the summer if they won’t get a summerjob. This way they can use their time wisely and be more prepared next time they’re looking for a job. Workshops have different themes, like how to use social media to your advantage, how to stand out in the labour market.”
Signe Rasmussen, Ahmet Mutlu, Julieta Talavera, Futuro Berg Fredes and Joshua Joel Ng from Malmö are working with The 24 Hour Social Innovation Camp. ”It’s a chance for individuals from all facets of society to unite and creatively collaborate to finding solutions to some of the greater dilemmas facing social, cultural and political life in Malmö. Throughout the 24 Hours, there will be a series of short seminars, inspirational talks, unplugged concerts, cooking sessions, open bars, ping-pong-playing-vinyl-spinning, creative sessions and more. We have invited a team of very interesting people and speakers to mentor and guide the participants and projects.” Read more from Connectors Malmö website.
Still curious about this week? Read more about Entrepreneurship through networking here.
