Description
Important! Please note that the content bellow represents only a short version of our challenge description. Please read and download the full version of the challenge here:
https://goo.gl/NpxALN
Contact Laetitia AMIOT : europe@tvt.fr
Challenge description
Our challenge aims at finding a solution to foster
entrepreneurial mindsets, innovation and business creation among a target facing
the greatest difficulties in finding employment, with priority being given to:
- young people, graduates or not, with or without training,
but without employment
- job seekers in rural areas
The mentioned target is at risk of
becoming socially excluded – individuals with income below the poverty-line and
lacking the skills, or sometimes only the grit or sense of entitlement, to act
on improving their economic situation by creating their own job opportunities.
Even more specifically through this
challenge we aim at tackling the problems that the rural youth is facing that
could suffer from additional set of barriers which are linked to their spatial
isolation and to the impression of a more narrow range of opportunities
available to them.
Target community and Location
The challenge is located in the
region of Toulon (Var department), an average size city circa 600.000. In the
area of Toulon, unemployment rates are quite high (close to 11% of
unemployment, which is slightly above the average rates in France).
Toulon concentrates more than half of
the inhabitants of the Var department. However, in the Var, 38% of the territory
is considered to be rural, but only 5% of the population lives in these areas,
creating large empty rural areas where employment opportunities are very
scarce.
The target group is young people facing the greatest
difficulties in finding employment located in urban and rural areas of Toulon
and the Var.
There are 89.900 job seekers in the Var, of which 20.180 have been seeking a
job for over two years and 11.000 are under 25 years old. Our challenge will
focus on the two later categories.
To
implement this scheme and stimulus package, TVT wishes to draw on methods and
tools already in the course of experimentation with start-up creators and students. Indeed, TVT Innovation has a long history of collaboration
with local entrepreneurs and Universities through events (community meet-ups,
cocreation program, organization of conferences, hackathons, startup
week-ends), dedicated support programs (acceleration programs, training camps,
etc.) and hosting services (coworking space and business Incubators).
Competencies
TVT (Toulon Var Technologies) is a
non-profit organization, created in 1988 by public and private stakeholders,
dedicated to fostering innovation and the economic development in the area of
Toulon and the Var (Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur region).
TVT Innovation manages a Business Innovation Center, helping
innovative entrepreneurship and supporting the local ecosystem with dedicated
programs and support actions to key economic sectors. Our activities include workspaces
(coworking space and 2 Business Incubators) for innovative activities and new
technologies, a dedicated Business Support Service (Accelerator Program,
Training Camp) to help innovative SMEs and projects holders create an efficient
business roadmap (including coaching, financial support, expert consultancy)
and a Business Angel Network.
In the recent years, several tools have been
experimented to serve this purpose, dedicated “Etudiants-Entrepreneurs”
(student entrepreneurs) that include namely :
- Raising awareness on business
creation and innovative entrepreneurship among university students and schools through
masterclasses,
- organization of events : community
meet-ups, barcamps, hackathons, startup weekends, cocreation programs between
big corporations and students, etc.
- Several hands-on training programs
: Training Camp and Accelerateur for project holders, another called “Les
Entepreneuriales” targeting students in which pluridisciplinary teams follow a
training program for the creation of a start-up of their choice.
TVT Innovation comprises 15 team
members (including administrative staff) that support entrepreneurs on a daily
basis. Four team members would be especially involved in this specific
challenge and act as champions for its realization:
- 1 person in charge of the
program “Les Entepreneuriales”
- 1 person in charge of La
Cantine (organization of events and link with student life)
- 1 person in charge of
communication, promotion and community management,
- 1 person in charge of the the
Training Camp and Accelerator program, as well as all business support services
that provide advice and guidance to project holders.
Innovation
The programs implemented until now have been successful, but
reach mainly people located in the close surroundings of Toulon. More efforts
are needed to reach out to underprivileged communities and to people located in
remote areas of the Var (especially in rural areas of Toulon’s hinterland)
By using methods dedicated to student
entrepreneurship, help us develop the best tools, stimulus and plans to
disseminate the spirit of entrepreneurship, innovation and business creation
among the people facing the greatest difficulties in finding employment.
Commitment
To support the implementation of the
solution to this challenge, our organization could provide the following
resources :
- Information, data
and expertise on
the issue: feedback and lessons
learned working with student-entrepreneurs ;
- Close cooperation and
contacts with the target audience: organization of focus-groups with students (for
a user-centric / design-thinking approach), implementation of a living lab
methodology ;
- Pro-bono consultancy
/ coaching of
the selected solution providers though our support
programs for project holders and start-up creators
- Hosting in our coworking
space