Online entrepreneurship programmes offer a solution in the face of Covid-19

An article by Jim Sims, Lead Expert for the BluAct Transfer Network

Necessity has been the mother of invention for a number of European cities, who, faced with Covid-19 restrictions, have had to adopt a range of innovative approaches to delivering online entrepreneurship programmes. 

The BluAct Network

The cities have been working as part of the BluAct Transfer Network, an URBACT Transfer Network which was designed to transfer a Good Practice in Blue Growth Entrepreneurship from the city of Piraeus, to six other cities across Europe.  

Piraeus pioneered the development of the Blue Growth Initiative, an entrepreneurship competition, which is focussed on stimulating the growth of the marine and maritime economy, back in 2014 and have been running the competition annually ever since.

The BluAct Network was formed in 2018, with the aim of creating a network of 7 cities across Europe that were all running Blue Growth Entrepreneurship programmes. As part of the programme, the transferring cities spent two years trying to replicate an adapted version of the Blue Growth Initiative in their own cities. 

Online delivery in the face of Covid-19

Originally conceived to be delivered entirely through a face-to-face delivery model, the Blue Growth Initiative was split into a number of phases, including;

• The establishment of a strong multi-agency governance structure for overseeing the delivery of the initiative
• Securing the resources to deliver the programme and support the entrepreneurs
• Marketing and outreach work
• Proposal Generation
• Demo Day/Award Ceremony Organisation
• Incubation Delivery
• Ongoing celebration and promotion

However, a number of the cities involved have found themselves having to adapt to an online delivery model, when challenged by some of the recent Covid-19 restrictions. However, this hasn’t stopped them from delivering a successful transfer.  

The breadth and variety of online delivery has been the most noticeable factor in the delivery of the cities blue growth entrepreneurship programmes. For example;

• The city of Ostend have delivered an innovative e-mentoring model, to ensure their competition winners were supported to develop their business idea;
• The city of Burgas developed an online campus, or pre-incubation programme, designed to prepare their participants for a demo day and subsequent awards programme;
• The city of Piraeus live streamed the competition and developed an online voting platform to enable viewers to vote for their favourite business idea;
• The city of Galati developed an online demo day and awards ceremony as part of their competition structure;
• The city of Salerno delivered an online hackathon/demo day; and
• Many of the cities delivered online local steering groups, to plan the overall competition delivery.

These online delivery models have not hampered the cities in the delivery of their original goals.

As the lead expert in the project Jim Sims says, “faced with the challenge of Covid-19, many of the cities have found they have been able to adapt their delivery models to move part of the competition delivery online. The overall success of the competition delivery has not been significantly affected by this change and many of the cities have still continued to deliver successful blue growth entrepreneurship programmes.”

Overall, the cities have hosted over 2000 event attendees and supported over 100 entrepreneurs to develop their business ideas.

BluAct Salerno Hackathon/DemoDay “SviProCup2020”

More information

To find out more about the BluAct Network, visit bluact.eu/