YIE Concluding Seminar or “The Great End for a New Beginning”

Being as one of the major point in ENPI Kolarctic programme, Young Innovative Entrepreneurs (YIE) project has been making an enormous impact on social development and on the economic situation for the whole Barents region. More attentively, YIE has paid attention to specific developing aspects in High North, such as entrepreneurship and employment level in local economic region, by bringing new ideas into the business sphere and establishing an active cooperation between young innovative entrepreneurs and already existing seasoned entrepreneurs around the Barents region.

Project’s final event included a business workshop on 30^th October and a concluding seminar on 31^st October. Through the business workshop, our young entrepreneurs in the Barents Regions had a chance to introduce their products and services directly to people in Rovaniemi by having individual promotion stands. An inspiring mini workshop was also held by Victoria Timofeeva from ARTishock, where participants can create beautiful paper flowers themselves. The aim of the seminar on the next day was to share our achievements and results and to strengthen cross-border entrepreneurship network in the Barents Region.

Main Part of the Seminar

           

Opening words were given by Leena Alalääkkölä, director of Culture and Business in Lapland UAS. She had an aim to adjust young and creative generation for future entrepreneurship relations and tell them that there is nothing to be afraid of.

Other speakers included for example Risto Mäkikyrö from Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment for Lapland – regional support for innovating businesses – TEKES, and Tiina Hoskari, graphic facilitator from Kuvitellen Ltd.

Project manager Eila Seppänen from Lapland UAS explained that the main target of the YIE project was to establish a safe, innovative and entrepreneurial learning environment to everyone. Seppänen gave thanks to InnoBarentsLab (IBL), the organization who was the main organizer of the Concluding Seminar. She pointed out that IBL is an useful and efficient tool for progressing skills and entrepreneurial training.

Group discussions

           

YIE team members shared their own acquired knowledge while working together during the project. As a summary of all received experiences, YIE guests were pleased to share with us some inspirational videos. One of them came from Norway, from Heidi Andreassen. While watching movies, seminar’s participants recognized that each individual has its own mindset to see him/herself in the various stages of life and thanks to YIE there was the chance to participate and experience, in order to achieve new business contacts.

Through the active discussion it was clearly understandable that members of this project, no matter where they came from – Sweden or Finland, Norway or Russia –will try to reach that next level of entrepreneurship.

The concluding words by project coordinators Anzelika Krastina and Saila Puukko were that a great job was done, but there is no reason to stay on the now reached level. This is not the final destination for us, who joined from the beginning of the project.

Even when YIE comes to its end and closes the door behind, in the same time it opens a window for InnoBarentsLab to start the next generation.

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Stay tuned and see what happens after the YIE project: InnoBarentsLab

The short one but still about the project...

Dear friends!

It is sad to say but our project is coming to an end.
On the 18th of December, the closing seminar was held in Murmansk, Russia. It was a warm and casual meeting where partners, project participants, representatives of support structures and the ones who wanted to hear about project results, met.

Project coordinators presented the results of work and plans to future activites. Everyone in the audience were welcome to say a few words about the project, to give feedback on project activities.
We had a very interesting discussion in the end followed up with a mingle time.

Project is over but we have a lot of ideas and many creative people in the region. The show must and will go on!
But now... Merry Cristmas and Happy New Year to everyone!
Cheers,
Anna

Business Camp II – Murmansk, Russia (Dec 2014)

 After the successful Business Camp May 2014, "Young Innovative Entrepreneurs" project continued its cross-border cooperation with Business Camp II. The event was organized and taken place from 03/12 to 09/12/2014 in Murmansk, Russia.

With the participation of YIE members from Lapland University of Applied Sciences, InnoBarentsLab, Jo- Jo the dog films and Urbanid companies, we looked forward to having a productive week.

Thursday (04/12/2014) was full of meetings. Anzelika Krastina, the leader of InnoBarentsLab in Rovaniemi and MIBO partners Larisa Bilous, Elena Skiotis, Elena Zubrickaya had a discussion about planning future cooperation that resulted in signed cooperation agreement. Among few activities agreed for the future is organisation of a winter school also in the form of a business camp, creating joint publications and exchange of expertise through on-line or on-campus lectures.

Jo- Jo the dog films visited their Russian partners: Mr. Pink and Roxy. Joonas and his team planned to film “The 100 Hour Film Race 2014” in Murmansk and they were looking for great location as well as support from local film producers.

Zoltan and Duong had a meeting with IT- centre “Fu2rama” in the afternoon. It went well and promises cooperation in the future.

Next day, on Friday, we had a successful Innovation and InnoBarents – 3DLab training at MIBO. In total there were about 40 participants that were very excited and active during the training and SCAMPER workshop. All feedbacks were very positive from both Russian students as well as MIBO partners.

Later in the evening, we all participated in a networking event organized by Finnish Consulate General in Murmansk to celebrate Finnish Independence Day.

On Saturday, the filming crew continued its work on the film, while Anzelika has a meeting and presentation at Murmansk International Lyceum. Also Russian media was very interested to hear about the cooperation possibilities within the region and with Lapland UAS in the future.

After shooting, Sunday was a chance for me to see and have a better view about Murmansk as this is my first time visiting. The city is undoubtedly great! People here are pretty kind and friendly and I had an awesome enjoyable time with my new friends.

We continued working on Monday with a visit to Star Dome. It was exciting to watch 3D movies in “Dome” and see Mariya explaining sciences in simplest way. We had discussion and planned about future cooperation.

We left Murmansk that afternoon in order to attend Kolarctic final seminar next day in Rovaniemi while the filming group stayed for another day as planned.

I would definitely come back to this lovely city again. Спасибо! See you soon Murmansk! 

   

Text and photos: Duong Nguyen