European Commission

It is time to start meeting our European Enterprise Promotion Awards (EEPA) 2019 winners, starting with the winner of Promoting the Entrepreneurial Spirit!

The 2019 winner is the Haven project from Belgium, which supports and strengthens enterprising young people who want to develop a project. Additionally the project offers a safe testing ground to encourage creative youth entrepreneurship to grow into socially relevant companies. By offering a risk-free environment Haven encourages entrepreneurial youth to learn, experiment and fail, and thus enhance their competences for their future enterprises. As a result, these youth will be able to address our evolving societal challenges with their ideas, and have the experience to carry them out. The project has been active for three years and has 80 young affiliates that have benefited from the scheme.

How did you first hear about the national competition and why did you decide to enter?

We heard about the award in a few different ways. To begin with, one of our coaches found the award in a newsletter, and then we also received information on the EEPA from colleagues from the federal government. At first we didn’t realise just how big the award was and how extensive the EEPA network is, so we just approached it as an opportunity to do our best, show what we have done through our project and ultimately meet people from all over Europe who share the same beliefs surrounding youth and entrepreneurship.

How did you prepare your application?

We prepared the application with a small group of our members. It was interesting to write the application and define what we are doing and how we differ from others. Some of our preparation was a bit rushed and looking back we could have done more, but in the end it all worked out and the experience was worth it.

What was it like to win the award?

It was amazing and completely unexpected! We really did not expect to win, and were there because we were nominated by the Belgian delegation. We are super thankful for winning this award, and especially for giving us the chance to meet so many great people from across Europe.

How did winning the award impact your work?

Winning the award gave us an identity on European level. As a young organisation this is really important as we need to find new European level partners to work with, but has also proved valuable at local level as EEPA has created more visibility and recognition for the hard work we are doing. The biggest opportunity as a result of EEPA for us now is to work together with new partners and expand our methodology.

Why should others enter EEPA 2020? What advice would you give them?

The EEPA network is an incredibly diverse and encouraging network, and shows that Europe is investing in entrepreneurship and bringing together social entrepreneurs from across Europe. We would advise future participants to join EEPA 2020 because it opens so many doors and opportunities. Just give it a try!

What are your plans for the future?

We want to make entrepreneurship a viable and realistic choice next to studying and working as an employee. Young people with ideas need to easily find their way to entrepreneurship. In order to make this a reality, we want to work with our government towards a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship and make laws ‘entrepreneurship friendly’, particularly for young entrepreneurs.

At Haven we create a safe space for youth to build upon and make their dreams a reality. We want what we do at Haven to become mainstream and ‘normal’ in Belgian society. We meet youth who have ‘missed’ their chance, whether it be in education or the labour market, and through our work we want to ensure that we can create opportunities for them and give them the support they need.

EEPA gave us the opportunity to meet other people that believe just as strongly in both youth and entrepreneurship which was incredibly inspiring and a true motivation to continue our work and keep providing opportunities and support for youth entrepreneurs.

Keep coming back to Promoting Enterprise for more EEPA 2019 winner testimonials and don’t forget to watch their winning moments on our YouTube channel:

The European Enterprise Promotion Awards 2019 celebrated the best of the best in a ceremony on the 2^nd day of the SME Assembly 2019. On 26 November 2019, six category winners were awarded with EEPA prizes, and an overall Grand Jury Prize winner was crowned as being the most outstanding project across the six categories for 2019.

Congratulations once again to the EEPA class of 2019!

Promoting the Entrepreneurial Spirit

Haven Incubator CVBA-SO, a safe port for young experimentation, Belgium

Investing in Entrepreneurial Skills

IDEA Innovation & Entrepreneurship Centre, Cyprus

Improving the Business Environment

Fomento de la Contratacion Publica con Pymes, Spain

Supporting the Internationalisation of Business

HealthTech Nordic, Sweden

Supporting the Development of Green Markets and Resource Efficiency

TILOS, Greece

Responsible and Inclusive Entrepreneurship

Start-Up Your Future, Germany

Grand Jury Prize

Green PAC iLab, The Netherlands

It is time to meet this year’s shortlisted projects! Over the next few weeks each of the projects that the EEPA 2019 Jury have chosen will be presented in the category in which they will be competing in the EEPA 2019 finals at the SME Assembly in Helsinki this November.

To start the introductions, we are meeting the three shortlisted projects competing for the prize in Category 1: Promoting the Entrepreneurial Spirit.

Port Incubator CVBA-SO, a safe port for young experimentation. Haven (Port), Belgium

Haven [Port] supports and strengthens enterprising young people who want to develop a project, and offers a safe testing ground to encourage creative youth entrepreneurship to grow into socially relevant companies. By offering a risk-free environment Haven encourages entrepreneurial youth to learn, experiment and fail, and thus enhance their competences for their future enterprises. As a result, these youth will be able to address our evolving societal challenges with their ideas, and have the experience to carry them out. The project has been active for two years and has 49 young affiliates that have benefited from the scheme.

Game Hub Scandinavia, Denmark

Game Hub Scandinavia allows current gaming market students at Viden Djurs business school, to continue their education in game development at established company Dania Games. Students can establish companies in the Game Incubator, spread across four locations in Denmark and Sweden. The Incubator works with young talent to develop their businesses and teach them the specifics of the highly competitive game industry, to ensure survival of young companies. The Incubator also conducts research that can be used to guide business models for the companies of the incubator. To date, the project partners have created approximately 100 companies and 157 workplaces.

The path of the young entrepreneur, Serbia

“The path of the young entrepreneur” focuses on promoting the entrepreneurial spirit of young people, and educating them about opportunities for starting businesses and developing innovative ideas, in response to the growing problem of youth unemployment. The project has established connections between youth (over 2000), entrepreneurial initiatives (100), corporations and startups (over 50), to facilitate the construction of a stable entrepreneurial community, and provide resources and information for the youth to launch entrepreneurial careers. Project activities include youth entrepreneurship fairs, business training, entrepreneurship competitions, a startup business forum, university visits and public panel discussions and lectures.

Keep coming back to the News Portal every week to meet the 2019 shortlisted projects!

Don’t forget to have a look at all of the EEPA 2019 national winners that represent the top projects across all of the participating countries right here.

The European Enterprise promotion Awards (EEPA) are an opportunity for outstanding projects from across the European Union and COSME countries to be recognised for their work in supporting entrepreneurs and small businesses.

The European Enterprise Promotion Awards 2019 have closed and the jury will deliberate over the outstanding national winners submitted by each National Coordinator. But who is in contention for a spot on the shortlist? Time to meet the contenders in Category 1: Promoting the entrepreneurial spirit!

Belgium: Port Incubator CVBA-SO, a safe port for young experimentation. Haven (Port)

Croatia: R1novatorR1

Denmark: Game Hub Scandinavia

Estonia: Huppelaud (Spring Board) Summer School

France: Start-1ère©

Hungary: Start your own businesses Józsefváros! idea competition

Ireland: Community Entrepreneurship – An Innovative Approach to Create Change Agents for the Community

Lithuania: Moksleivių  socialinio verslumo skatinimas: JuniorSO

Malta: National campaign to promote employment opportunities in the manufacturing sector and ‘MAKE IT’ Campaign

Poland: Pilska Akademia Umiejętności

Serbia: The path of the young entrepreneur

This year this category received 10 entries, with a variety of projects ranging from youth business programmes to supporting specific sectors with employment opportunities and many more.

Good luck to all of the national winners, and keep coming back to the News Portal to discover the national winners in each category for EEPA 2019!

About the EEPA selection process

The competition has two stages. Applicants must first compete at national level to be eligible to compete at European level. For the national competition, each country selects up to two entries to be nominated for the European competition.

A shortlist of nominees will be chosen by a European jury. All nominees from the national and European competitions will be invited to attend the final awards ceremony. The ceremony recognises the winners for their efforts and gives them the opportunity to present themselves in a pan-European environment.