ReMark creates online learning material for firms
The ReMark project brought together partners from Lithuania, Slovakia, Cyprus and Finland in order to create online educational material for firms. The project first surveyed what information start up firms actually required through a questionnaire.
For example, in Slovakia firms were found to want information on the business idea and its development. In Slovakia firms have become accustomed to finding information about entrepreneurship on the internet. Of the survey respondents 60% were university researchers and the rest were students.
In Cyprus firms requested courses on IT, energy, logistics and tourism that focus on how to develop business ideas and business plans. The respondents were particularly interested in workshop style training that would complement the online material.
Of all the respondents in the four EU countries over 70% were interested in participating in internet based teaching and half stated that they would prefer to study during their own free time.
The respondents were most interested in the development of the business idea and the business plan as well as learning about financing options. The area of least interest was the development of management skills. In total over 110 people interested in the teaching of entrepreneurship responded to the survey.
In Slovakia, the project partner is a firm named Elfa. The firm is based in the 150,000 inhabitant city of Kosice and was established by the researchers and teachers of the city's technical university. Their objectives include the development of a business incubator. According to project director Zoltán Szalay, information about starting a company is still widely dispersed in Slovakia.
"The people with university backgrounds do not have the necessary information about how to start up a firm and how the legal matters are to be handled. We wanted to establish a learning environment that collected all the knowledge, from management to taxation, in one place", says Szalay.
He thinks that the YBT learning environment program developed for young entrepreneurs by the HSE Small Business Center is a good starting point for their work.
"Through this project we can create a general English language web learning environment. The objective is that the material used by Finns is to be translated and localized so that, for example, taxation and management practices fit with each participant countries' local practices."
The ReMark project participants visited the Start Up Center in Ruoholahti, Helsinki in May. Szalay found the Finnish business incubator model to be very interesting.
"We can learn how Finnish business incubators work, how they are started up and how they are developed. This kind of information is very useful for us. We have high expectations for this project."
Elfa was established in 1992 and Szalay has had the opportunity to work at the firm for one year. The firm's clientele includes national development projects and teacher training programs. Elfa's largest client is T-Systems for who Elfa trains personnel.
The ReMark project will continue until the end of next year and will be coordinated by the Kaunas Regional Innovation Center in Lithuania. The project partners are the HSE Small Business Center, Kaunas University of Technology and the Baltic Education Technology Institute in Lithuania, X-Panel Ltd in Cyprus and ELFA Ltd in Slovakia.
Text and picture: Päivi Kapiainen-Heiskanen