Social enterprises can harness university student's creativity to tackle challenges
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Social Entrepreneurship Incubation Program (SEIP) has launched an open call for social enterprises and purpose-driven businesses to collaborate with university students on advancing their business.
Organisers are looking for social enterprises that have already begun operations, in the idea validation process, or seeking to expand or modify their business model.
Entrepreneurs can enter the incubation programme with a well-defined problem or challenge related to their work.
Participating businesses can benefit from the fresh energies and different mind-set of business school, social entrepreneurship and social science students.
Selected organisations will be matched with creative and enthusiastic students from four European universities and professional mentors to deliver strategic support for their specific problem.
“The program was initiated by SEIP (Social Entrepreneurship Incubation Program) that has branches in Ireland, the Netherlands, Estonia, Hungary, Romania, Thailand, Singapore and Canada.
Our incubation programme is closely connected with the Social Entrepreneurship MA programme at Tallinn University.
We had a lot of great experiences with students using their creative energies and knowledge in development work.
On the other hand, we support many social enterprises and purpose-driven businesses, and we see that many of them are struggling with lack of human resources, especially at the start-up phase,” says Zsolt Bugarszki PhD, Founder of SEIP and Head of Tallinn University's Social Entrepreneurship MA program in Estonia.
The first cohort of the cooperation will be organised between the 19th of March and the 28th of May 2021.
Interested businesses can apply by filling out an online form until the 17th of March 2021.
Four universities will provide students with a chance to practice in this collaborative project, where they can work directly with social entrepreneurs and purpose-driven companies from different countries.
“Students are doing this programme as part of their regular courses as an assignment, an internship or as an extracurricular activity while they are supervised and led by their professors, lecturers.
They will learn new things and acquire new skills by doing, instead of sitting in the classroom. This project is a real win-win for social enterprises and students,”
explains Bugarszki further.
Partner institutions include Tallinn University, Estonia; University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, The Netherlands; The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Faculty of Business Administration in Foreign Language, Romania; ELTE University, Faculty of Special Education, Disability Studies and Social Innovation Lab, Hungary.
Bugarszki adds: “We are working closely with Universities on this experimental programme, and depending on the results, we are hoping to organise it again on a bigger scale in the Autumn semester, involving even more third-level educational institutions if possible.”
Due to the pandemic and international collaboration, all activities will be carried out online.
Headline image: Getty Images
