What is YESS?
YESS (Young Entrepreneurs Startup School) is an Interreg Greece – Italy aims at creating the first Cross-Border (CB) incubator within the Regions of Apulia, Achaia, Ionian Islands and Epirus. The overall objective of the project is the promotion of the entrepreneurial spirit and the incubation of new companies, encouraging the economic development of the regions involved and the exchange of knowledge and competences between partners and stakeholders.
The specific objective consists in the creation and the development of a CB incubator for innovative start-ups in the fields of:
The incubator will provide most of its services both through a physical and a virtual environment, which will foster new business ideas, encouraging the co-design and cooperation within students, researchers, startuppers and entrepreneurs, maximizing the benefits of the Web 2.0 technologies and using an open access innovation approach.
Full Title
Young Entrepreneurs Startup School
Programme : Interreg V-A Greece Italy Programme 2014 – 2020
Priority Axis : Innovation and Competitiveness
Thematic Priority : Enhancing the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises, the agricultural sector (for the EAFRD) and the fisheries and aquaculture sector (for the EMFF)
Specific Objective : Supporting the incubation of innovative specialized micro and small enterprises in thematic sectors of interest to the Programme Area
MIS code: 5003645
Who we are
An International Consortium in the Greece-Italy Cross-Border Area
A heterogeneous and complementary partner consortium has been created by involving a university specialized in technology and management (LP), a research centre specialized in vocational and high professional training (P2), an association of enterprises (P3), an NGO, member of AI-BAN, representing citizens (P5) and a university specialized in business (P4).
Polytechnic University of Bari (LP)
Universus CSEI (P2)
Chamber of Commerce of Bari (P3)
University of Ioannina (P4)
European Regional Framework for Cooperation (P5)
Project Summary
YESS Project grounds its roots in the theories of social capital and wants to maximize the potential of social networking, identifying it as a flywheel of entrepreneurial success. The large availability and the cost reduction of ICT platforms, the increasing quantity and quality of information available on the web as well as the continuous flexibility required by SMEs to sustain global competition, has pushed the labour market towards the “sharing economy”, that means the use of shared ICT tools to enable ubiquitous work, virtual real-time meeting and online collaborations, increasing efficiency.
The sharing economy uses and systematizes, on increasingly widespread scale and with a focus on environmental sustainability, the information communication tools, relying on intensive reuse of knowledge possessed. According to both H2020 and GR-IT Work Programme, the CB Area needs to invest in skills and lifelong learning by developing joint educational, vocational training and training schemes. These areas are afflicted also by high unemployment rates, where the youth unemployment is far above the EU average and consequently provokes the brain drain.
The focal point to solve this problem is innovation. There is a lack of innovative thinking due to the difficulties to create new businesses, poor training in entrepreneurship and lack of high quality innovative services for young entrepreneurs. Usually there is a poor systematic interaction between Universities and Businesses. YESS Project aims at contributing to create an innovation ecosystem that could retain the brain drain and reduce the gap with other EU countries.
Objectives
The overall objective of the project is the promotion of the entrepreneurial spirit and the incubation of new companies, encouraging the economic development of the regions involved and the exchange of knowledge and competences between partners and stakeholders.
The specific objective consists in the creation and the development of a CB incubator for innovative start-ups in the fields of:
The incubator will provide most of its services both through a physical and a virtual environment, which will foster new business ideas, encouraging the co-design and cooperation within students, researchers, startuppers and entrepreneurs, maximizing the benefits of the Web 2.0 technologies and using an open access innovation approach.
Is the incubation period
will participate in incubation services
of training will be offered
between startuppers & investors
Main Outputs
- 1 Web incubation Platform
- 2 Incubation labs, 1 pre-seed in Greece and 1 operative in Italy
- The CBC YESS innovation Fund Network
- 20 selected start-ups belonging to both countries are to be incubated as pilot case
- 2 Pitch events for start-ups/innovators/SMEs
- 2 Business Game competition for youth
- 1 Summer School for our students
Main Outputs
The main expected result of YESS are the models and schemes for the incubation of the 4 targeted sector. YESS consortium will create a heterogeneous network with the aim at supporting and develop business capacities of emerging innovation with the need of establish linkages within the innovation ecosystem. The consortium will work to establish an innovation culture in the CB area with concrete technological transfer between Universities/Research centres and SMEs, a culture of innovation management and the breakthrough possibility that a networking can permits in terms of exchange ideas, know-how and workforce (social open innovation).
Therefore, the consortium will establish a fruitful and linked bridge, based on R&D specializations, for partnerships of companies with universities and public-private laboratories, trying increasing participation of SMEs in research networks and technology markets. Another bridge will be created with other Incubators in order to create a network for the exchange of best practices.
GET INVOLVED!
Do you want to create a startup that will scale and raise funds? We want to listen your idea!
