“The youthful, vibrant faces of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are the representatives of widely known entrepreneurial icons. But few people would conjure the more etched faces of Sam Walton (who founded Walmart at 44) or Charles Flint (who founded IBM at 61) when asked to name a successful entrepreneur. Why entrepreneurship is so often correlated with youth rather than corporate experience isn’t clear, particularly considering that age is becoming a huge contributing factor to entrepreneurial success.” — Roger St. Pierre
ENTRUST is a training and development programme where people aged 50+ will be supported in bringing an idea for a sustainable tourism business from concept to commercialisation. The partners for this programme include, Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences (Finland), WestBIC (Ireland), AidLearn (Portugal), BIOSPHERE (Portugal) and Business Development Friesland (the Netherlands). The project aims to promote a blended training package and develop a programme where people aged 50+ will be supported in bringing an idea for sustainable tourism business from concept to commercialisation, create interactive tools with a view to connect and engage this generation of people aged 50+ in low population territories, provide people aged 50+ with an interactive learning platforms containing relevant training and support material and deliver guidelines for VET providers on using the developed materials and resources in their practice in support of the creation of business ideas based on the use of traditional tourism, culture and heritage at risk of disappearing.
This summer, the team has been developing the platform and the programming of the e-tools (self-assessment, learning materials, collaborative network and creative lab). The self-assessment tests will determine your strengths and weaknesses. Depending on your results, you will study the relevant units at your own time. The 4 available units include:
1. Business opportunities for 50+ entrepreneurs in rural areas
2. How to create a sustainable tourism business from cultural heritage in rural areas?
3. Experimental lab: From idea to prototype and commercialisation
4. Designing a business model and strategies
You will also get access to the creative lab space where you will further develop and expand your idea and you will also be able to interact with ENTRUST community members through the collaborative space.
The platform will be user centered, offering the creation personal profiles through a simple process of sign-up and supporting the evolution of the learning process.
After the summer break, testing of the Entrust platform will start. Here, the team is looking to validate whether the results of the project is what they hoped for or not and see in which ways the platform can be improved in the future. Are you interested in helping us test the platform? Contact Alison McGonagle (amcgonagle@westbic.ie) for more info.
Stay tuned on ENTRUST social media channels for more information on the platform and testing!
