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RE-FEM Newsletter #1 – June 2023

Welcome to the first Newsletter of the RE-FEM project

By signing up for our Newsletter, you can enjoy the following advantages:

• Stay updated with the latest developments in female entrepreneurship.
• Get inspired by captivating stories and videos.
• Access research publications from RE-FEM.
• Receive first-hand news about upcoming events.
• Gain valuable insights into innovative approaches for female entrepreneurship.

Invitation to participate in the RE-FEM survey targeting women entrepreneurs

In the framework of the RE-FEM project, the partnership has developed a survey that aims to gather valuable insights and perspectives from women entrepreneurs to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges they face after the Covid-19 pandemic and in recent times of multiple crises.

We kindly request the participation of women entrepreneurs running their own businesses in any of the following countries to fill in our survey:

The survey results will provide us with data for compiling a research report and help us tailor educational programmes useful for educators supporting women entrepreneurs. The research result is planned to be published on the RE-FEM project’s website in November 2023.

ABOUT RE-FEM

RE-FEM – ‘Upskilling pathways for REsiliency in the post-Covid era for FEMale Entrepreneurs’ is an Erasmus+ project led by HETFA Research Institute, aiming to empower women entrepreneurs, through need-based training for maintaining resilient businesses in the post-covid era. The project also wants to serve the needs of the trainers and mentors in business support and entrepreneurship working in the field of adult education by providing easily accessible, high quality and transformative training tools.

Consortium of RE-FEM

RE-FEM gathers 1 Higher Education Institute, 2 research institutes, 2 public bodies, 2 business supporting NGOs and 1 individual entrepreneur.

Coordinator

• HÉTFA Research Institute (HU)

Partners

• Andalucía Emprende Fundación Pública Andaluza (ES)
• Brand-Sofi (FI)
• Mihajlo Pupin Institute (SRB)
• Regional Agency for Entrepreneurship and Innovations (BG)
• Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (RO)
• SEED Foundation (HU)
• Slovak Business Agency (SK)

Activities of RE-FEM

The implementation of RE-FEM consists of several interlinked activities in order to provide efficient entrepreneurial development for women through research, needs-based, high-quality training materials, e-learning modules and establishing an international network group for all the target groups involved in the project.

• The partnership will first conduct comparative research (Project result 1) to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges women entrepreneurs face in the post-pandemic area, focusing on specific aspects of women with fewer opportunities.
• Based on the research result, partners’ expertise and knowledge in developing adult education, the partnership will develop an inclusive and accessible Training Manual (Project result 2) with training materials and methodologies, and an Open Education Platform with an online course for entrepreneurship training (Project result 3). The training materials and online course will be tested and introduced to the wider public through pilot training and public stakeholder events in all partner countries.
• During the project, the partnership will lay the foundation for an international network, where women entrepreneurs, associated partners and consortium members can connect, build relationships, learn from each other and find partners for their future projects.
• RE-FEM will formulate policy recommendations to define directions for adult education, entrepreneurship, and the labour market to support women entrepreneurs in building and managing resilient businesses in the age of digital transformation. The recommendations will be summarised in a ‘Policy Study’ (Project result 4).

EVENT RECAP

1st Transnational Meeting

The consortium gathered for the first time in December 2023. The 2-day kick-off meeting was successfully held on 15-16 December 2022 with the active contribution of all partners. The event’s main aim was to establish the main framework of project management and lay the foundations of good cooperation.

Women’s Entrepreneurship Day – Hungary

On 22 November 2022, Oborni Katalin (HETFA, HU) participated in a roundtable discussion on advocacy opportunities for women entrepreneurs.

Women Entrepreneurship Thematic Group of Enterprise Europe Network

The RE FEM project was successfully presented at the meeting of the thematic group for women’s entrepreneurship within the Enterprise Europe Network on 12 May 2023 by Oborni Katalin (HETFA Research Institute).

WINGATE conference

On 22 May 2023, the RE-FEM project – among other activities of HETFA – was presented by Katalin Oborni, (HETFA Research Institute) at a conference organized by the WINGATE project.

ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS

We are proud to introduce the members of the RE-FEM Advisory Board.

RE-FEM AMBASSADOR NETWORK

The objective of the RE-FEM project Ambassadors is to inspire those women of all ages and backgrounds who are interested in starting their own businesses in the future. We are pleased that 14 project ambassadors have been recruited from all the RE-FEM project partner countries. The Ambassadors will contribute to the work of the RE-FEM project by:

• Promoting female entrepreneurship, the RE-FEM project, its objectives and results to educators, trainers, mentors and women entrepreneurs;
• Sharing their experiences and personal stories of becoming and being an entrepreneur to boost the self-confidence of women.
• Representing RE-FEM at public events;
• Giving expert interviews within the research conducted in the framework of the RE-FEM project;

The first online meeting with the RE-FEM Projects Ambassadors took place on the 21st of April 2023.

FEMALE ENTREPRENEUR SPOTLIGHT

Inspiration stories from all across Europe

Spain

Ana Medina García has been recognized with the award in the ‘Women Founders’ category. Entrepreneurship World Cup 2022. She defines herself as an entrepreneur in continuous learning. Co-founder and CEO of Genengine, a company dedicated to the design and development of decision support solutions in clinical genetics. Her Malaga-based firm is dedicated to digitizing and optimizing processes in the genetic-clinical field, helping doctors make more efficient decisions in the diagnosis of rare diseases. Her motivation: The passion for innovation and social impact is her DNA. She focuses on the development of innovative solutions that facilitate the translation of research to the clinic and promote the practice of personalized medicine. LinkedIn

Finland

Linnea Strand is a young entrepreneur who can really act as a role model, as she is showing the way to more sustainable entrepreneurship. Due to her burning interest in entrepreneurship and sustainability, Linnea founded the food waste company LivsVinn in 2019 after completing a master’s degree in economics from Hanken in Vaasa. She is 27 years old, grew up and lives in Närpes, where she also now runs her company LivsVinn. Linnea has taken up the fight against a disproportionately large amount of food waste in Finland by mediating affordable food products that are too old to be sold in grocery stores. For example, tomatoes defined as overripe are saved to be converted into waste tomatoes and processed tomato products. The tomatoes come from the surrounding area because there are several greenhouse entrepreneurs in the municipality. She herself also grew up in a greenhouse family where both parents are entrepreneurs. Now she realizes her dream focused on sustainability issues, a real role model for others. LivsVinn creates a win-win situation for everyone.

PARTNER’S ACTIVITIES HIGHLIGHTED

Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania

• Gergely Orsolya and Kádár Beáta presented a paper at the 16th International Conference on Economics and Business, CHALLENGES IN THE CARPATHIAN BASIN, with the title: What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger? The situation of female entrepreneurs after a long crisis period from Romania according to a desk research and expert interviews. The paper presents the results of a national desk research regarding the situation of female entrepreneur in the first month of 2023 and a qualitative research conducted among experts regarding female entrepreneurs from Romania.
• Orsolya Gergely (project coordinator at Sapientia and lead researcher in RE-FEM) was invited to the Mozaik program of Transylvanian Hungarian Television to discuss the #metoo movement that emerged over half a decade ago, and to explore whether any significant changes have occurred since its inception. The conversation also focused on the outcomes of the numerous courageous individuals who spoke out against sexual harassment and assault. More information is available here.
• On June 14th, Gergely Orsolya moderated a roundtable discussion in Csíkszereda organized by the IT Plus cluster, with the participation of three women working in the field of information technology. The focus of the discussion was to explore the reasons behind the dominance of certain professions by either men or women, and whether gender inequality in a specific field influences the career choices of today’s young people. The conversation also addressed the anticipated changes in these statistics in the future.

Slovak Business Agency

Women in business in Slovakia can be recognized and rewarded thanks to the Female Entrepreneur of Slovakia competition that is organized by the Slovak Business Agency (SBA) for two decades. The main idea of the contest is to reward successful women in business and their ability to establish their companies firmly in the market as the position of women entrepreneurs, in comparison with male entrepreneurs, is more difficult since most of the women entrepreneurs are responsible mothers that have to synchronize their personal and professional lives. The contest aims to showcase the best women entrepreneur in Slovakia, and in such a way to motivate other women not to be afraid to start their own businesses or develop existing enterprises. This contest is held to identify successful women entrepreneurs in a variety of categories in order:

• to inspire the next generation of women;
• to acknowledge their hard work;
• and to show them the respect that they deserve.

GET TO KNOW OUR SISTER PROJECTS

The WOMEN IN BUSINESS is a project co-funded by INTERREG Danube Transnational Programme, implemented by 14 organizations from 9 countries, led by RAPIV during the period June 2018 – Nov 2021, focusing on fostering young women entrepreneurship in the Danube Region.

Among all the achieved results, we are proud to have established Women Entrepreneurship Centres (EWCs) in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Within the activities of EWCs, the consortium developed 3 training models for different stages of female business development: women with zero business experience or less than 1Y; start-ups up to 3Y experience; and advanced women with more than 3Y experience.

During the pilot testing more than 240 young women from all over the Danube Region took part in our training, 6 face-to-face workshops, 35 webinars, and met 20 trainers.

The Good Practices Handbook is a result of joint efforts of all WOMEN IN BUSINESS project partners. 43 good practices for women entrepreneurship support are identified and included in the database to be used as inspiration, but only 10 – best of them are presented in details and showcased in the Good Practice Handbook.

More information is available here.

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