4th newsletter

4th project newsletter (august 2021)

CHESS project – Creative Intrapreneurship Empowerment Skills

Project duration: 01/09/2019 – 31/08/2021

CHESS Intrapreneurship Academy

The piloting of the CHESS Intrapreneurship Academy started on January 2021 and lasted five months. During this period, the respond to the course was very positive, with 286 young adults signed up to the Intrapreneurship Academy learning modules. Most of the participants came from Italy, with 154 actual registrations to the course, 29 from Slovenia, 24 from Romania, 20 from Bulgaria, 16 from Belgium and 5 from Denmark. However there has been a marginal participation also from countries outside the CHESS Consortium such as France, Greece, India, Morocco, Moldavia, Tunisia, and Ukraine, which confirms the high interest around these themes from all over the world.

When asked about the motivation to enrol themselves in the Intrapreneurship Academy, the most often replies of the participants’ survey are: “useful extra skills to look for a new job”, “learn how to start my own business”. Nonetheless, some interviewed mentioned their “curiosity towards the subject”, the Intrapreneurial Process, this showing that the subject is of great interest among young people who are both starting and also struggling to find a job position that matches their preparation and expectations.

Have a look at the full Assessment of Pilot Testing and Finalization here.

National Mini conferences

On July, 3 multiplier events took place in Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia to raise awareness about the project objectives, activities and results:

In Bulgaria, 20 participants were actively involved through the preparation of a workshop about the intrapreneur’s tools in the form of a game. The participants highlighted that the workshop was very useful to better understand the concept of intrapreneurship.
In Romania, the workshop focused on the perceived challenges and opportunities for efficient use of an intrapreneurial mindset for achieving environmental, social and economic sustainability.
In Slovenia, the mini conference created a suitable space for networking among participants, after months of online interactions.

CHESS Final Conference

After two wonderful years of working together supported by the Erasmus+ programme, the CHESS project Final Conference took place on August 5, 2021 in Copenhagen hosted by DISIE, the project coordinator. Representatives ADELE Foundation, Forum AIC, Moverim, Asociatia SIMO and, of course, DISIE joined the event to disclose the outcomes of these intense two years. Several guest speakers joined the event enriching the debate.

In the morning, Jasmina Pless from the Danish Chamber of Commerce and Edoardo Montenegro from the Creative Business Network shared their inspiring views on the challenges that the cultural and creative industries are facing and on how to work intrapreneurial within the cultural and learning innovation ecosystem. During the afternoon, thanks to two panel debates, participants had the opportunity to hear interventions of successful startups and SMEs and gain insights on how these realities encourage intrapreneurial behaviour among their young employees. The event was an interesting opportunity to learn about the needs and desires of young people in the cultural and creative industries and on the other hand about the expectations that employers have from them.

Our takeaways are:

Fear will lead us nowhere: it is essential not to be afraid of taking risks and being resilient.
Risks are everywhere; there is no such thing as a zero-risk-situation; we need to assess risk as we had the opportunity to hear from the panelists, living examples of intrapreneurship.
Success in life is shown by happiness, not money.
Do not ever let anyone tell you you can’t do something.

If you haven’t had the chance to attend the conference, here is the link to the live-stream: https://vimeo.com/582974617