The EYE (Enabling Youth Entrepreneurship) support group project is a collaboration between four European business incubators with various approaches to working with youth enterprises. The alliance has helped the partners to gain expertise, build capacity and develop innovative and easy-to-share methodologies (the Y incubate toolkit) for business incubation programmes targeting young Europeans. The toolkit is based on the four organizations’ experience, and on preliminary research into the state of the art concerning business incubators for young people. It has been tested by several European entrepreneurship hubs, students’ associations and business support groups, and will be disseminated to all European universities, incubators, foundations, investors and governments promoting youth entrepreneurship programmes. The EYE project has included research, transnational project meetings, learning activities, workshops, project management and communication. At every stage, the partners have used innovative methodologies including product and service design, design thinking, partnership brokering, facilitation, and co-creation. Initially, the project was meant to create a toolkit to increase incubators’ performance. During the transnational project meetings, and after examining the needs of the target audience, the design team has decided to produce a multilayer toolkit to help young people learn about and prepare themselves for the challenges of entrepreneurship. Y incubate incorporates a set of instruments, both digital and physical, to make young people aware of their skills and encourage them to enter the world of entrepreneurship. It aims to become a powerful resource for tackling unemployment across Europe.
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