Good practice:

Youth Entrepreneurship Summer (YES) Program

Research has shown that entrepreneurship is not a viable career path for all young people, especially in the EU, but just for the minority equipped with the right skills, attitudes & values.
Having that in mind, all around Europe the development of youth entrepreneurship has become one of the highest priorities. Objectives: - Entrepreneurial Promotion - Change of mindset - Bring together students from different backgrounds - Bring youngsters in contact with the Greek entrepreneurial ecosystem
The YES Program is an annual summer school focused on entrepreneurship & innovation, hosted every year, by Athens University of Economics and Business. The Program is addressed to high school students.
The curriculum includes, lessons from academic lecturers, analysis and discussion of case studies, participation in business games, group activities, as well as processing and developing a business plan for a new business. Students are working in teams whilst drafting a business plan for their own idea, and finally the teams with the best ideas are awarded. At every stage, the methodology is structured to combine the introduction to theoretical insights with actual practical experience, often in a gamified way. Participants receive scholarships based on their performance through a skill test.
Main stakeholders: University and external sponsors - Beneficiaries are high school students from all over Greece.

The YES Program is financed by external sponsors. The sponsorship form may be: Money or Food or Awards Sponsorship
Students that do not achieve to earn a scholarship through the skill test are willing to pay for their participation in the Program. The cost is approximately 300 euros per student.

Up until today, 470 students have attended with a scholarship from 220 schools (65% from within Attica and 35% outside Attica).
Each year the students are divided into 8 to 10 teams of 5 students, and are asked to develop, throughout the program, their own innovative business idea.
Up until today an average of 2 to 3 teams every year, continues working on the idea after the program is finished and approximately 1 of them goes on to turn it into a viable business.

Students learn how to work together as a team,They change their mindset and way of thinking around entrepreneurship,Business teams that continued working after its completion have been formed, Students share their preference around business games & their dissatisfaction around long lasting lectures.

We consider the YES Program as highly interesting and transferable all over Europe. As long as there is a Business-related educational institution to cover the basic lectures the most difficult part is the networking.
After all the aforementioned are dealt with, the format of the program is very simple and easy to transfer anywhere.
A transfer that already took place was in the summer of 2018 within Greece and in the town of Ioannina and was implemented inside the University of Ioannina. The program was transferred exactly as it is performed in Athens and had very high rates of success within the young students of Ioannina.