Joaquín Gómez Gómez, Director of INFO, welcomed all the participants introducing REBORN project and the interest of the region in supporting this initiative. He thanked all the partners and entities involved in the project and gave a special mention of RENACE programme which is one of the main outputs developed in the region of Murcia as a result of the project. After his intervention, he introduced Pietro De Martino ( BIC Liguria - FILSE), the leader of the project, who gave a brief summary of what it has been done until now, the last meeting in Genova and introduced the main subject to be discussed the "Positive image of restarters".
Presentation of European Good Practices | “Positive Image of Restarters”
- “A course on Management of Failure” – Mr. Rafael Rabadán, Professor at the University of Murcia (Spain)
- “How to save the historic Ligurian pastry factory from bankruptcy” – Mr. Andrea Bottino, LigurCapital Director (Italy)NFNG
– From failing to learning. From learning to growing” – Mr. Fred Colantonio – Regional Expert, AGENCY FOR ENTERPRISE & INNOVATION (Wallonia, Belgium)
- “Positive Image of Restartes” – Ms. Viktóri Harta – Project assistant, IFKA (Hungary)
- “European Network for early warning & support to enterprises and second starters” – Mr. Kostas Karamarkos – External Expert, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT FUND / REGION OF WESTERN MACEDONIA (Greece)
- LUBELSKIE VOLVODESHIP: Enhancing competitiveness of businesses by implementing the project “Economic Marketing of the Lubelskie Voivodeship” – Ms. Danuta Sulowska, Investment and Promotion Section (Poland)
After the exposition of best practices took place the conference "Success for losers": Mr. Juan Corbera, entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience, expert in business strategy and coach in life management, started his presentation recognizing his failure in two cases. Based on his experience, he gave an explanation about the reasons of entrepreneurs who always gained and those who failed no matter what.
Round table | “Positive image of the re-starters: motivational entrepreneurship”
The round table was composed by the following participants:
• Ms. María José Bernal, Head of Business Development Area of the Regional Development Office of the Region of Murcia (INFO) – RENACE expert. RENACE project is one of the main results as a consequence of REBORN project. It was launched by the Regional Government of Murcia in July 2017. In a crisis context, a financial office was created by INFO with a demanded number of entrepreneurs requesting this service in order to get funding for their businesses. Taking into account this difficult panorama, they started to work with the support and collaboration of the principal actors involved in this challenge as financial entities, public sector, the Regional Development Office, CEEIM, chambers of commerce and professional bodies among others. The main actions undertaken were to identify the entrepreneurs in insolvency and to analyze individually each case; to provide training for qualified lawyers regarding regulations on entrepreneurial activity; to speed up legal proceedings in order to obtain the out-of-court settlement and to restart their business.
• Mr. Ginés Ángel García, President of the Association of Young Entrepreneurs of the Region of Murcia (AJE). He started his intervention explaining his experience with two failure cases trying to start a business and a third successful one. In his opinion, confidence and positive attitude are important tools for successful entrepreneurship.
• Mr. Juan Martínez, Plan Presto CEO. He shared his professional experience explaining his decision to start up a business in order to take the control of his own professional activity and how he achieved the success at once. He also congratulated the RENACE program. At the same time, he acknowledged having to face many difficulties, however, did not suffer all the economic problems that other speakers experiences passed. It is very important that institutions try to normalize failure and talk about it without fear as it is a shame to lose all that huge learning from a bad experience. From that learning is where you can build a new business.
• Ms. Carmen Garrido, Psychologist and Coach. She stated that needs required by entrepreneurs are not the same than those required by restarters. Succeeding without having failed before is very difficult. That is why failure is a learning process which involves several steps. It is vital to accept failure and to conceive it as something that leads you to improve, change and move forward. There are a number of different characteristics that can help a restarter change. However, there is a basic one that is the change of perspective/image. In this respect, every actor involved need to work for changing beliefs on society and on the own thoughts of the re-entrepreneur.
It was such an interesting, brain storming event.
