The meeting, organized by the two Italian partners, the Open Consortium and the Municipality of San Mauro Pascoli, was well attended: representatives of public and private organizations that promote regional entrepreneurship, such as employment centres, chamber of commerce, regional labour agency, and trade associations welcomed the initiative with interest and said they were ready to collaborate.
The challenge ahead is demanding: to build a HUB that locally can support “missing entrepreneurs” in connecting with local business communities, in establishing collaborative relationships and in understanding the innovation framework to steer and develop their entrepreneurial idea. The local ISIHUB will support the Business Skills and Matchmaking Programme that will be transnationally developed and locally piloted, targeting the different extents of skill-gaps of:
- individuals belonging to disadvantaged group, aspiring to launch a self-employment business
- start-up and early-stage entrepreneurs belonging to under-represented groups, who have weaker entrepreneurial and local connections.
The next meeting will be organized within this year and will cover the formalization of the Italian Hub and the planning of activities, including collaboration mechanisms with other ISI HUBs established under the TASK4ISI project.
This publication has been developed within the CE0200771 TASK4ISI project, supported by the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Programme with co-financing from the European Union. Its content is the sole responsibility of the authors and the project partnership and does not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Programme, its programme bodies or the European Union. Neither the programme authorities nor the European Union can be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.