The TREND webinar and courses

TREND (Training Refugees in Entrepreneurial skills using digital devices) is a European project coming slowly to its end. Its objective is to help migrants setting up their own business in Europe.

On Monday, July 13th 2020, the Academy of Entrepreneurship organised the online Multiplier Event for the project, titled ‘Training refugees on entrepreneurship? Challenges for social inclusion’. Due to the restrictive measures for combating COVID-19, the event couldn’t be a face-to-face one as it was originally planned, thus it was realised in the form of a Zoom webinar.

More than 500 people watched our event via Zoom and Facebook Live Stream and video. During the webinar, the results and the training platform of the TREND project were presented, giving the opportunity to migrants, refugees, education providers, and migrant-related organizations or any other interested in migration to find out about the possibilities offered by the project and the platform. You can still watch it here.

Notable speakers from non-profit organizations presented the following interesting initiatives and issues related to migrants’ social inclusion, shaping a fruitful session for all participants: 

  • Craft your Business: Entrepreneurship for vulnerable youth in Athens presented by Anastasia Sikiaridi, Livelihoods Manager at International Rescue Committee (IRC)
  • Interaction as a means of integration. Thoughts and prospects on empowering refugees and immigrants towards self-employment and entrepreneurship. The case of Nature’s Common Third, presented by Vasileios Tiliakos, President & Co-Founder of Athirma
  • Entrepreneurship and integration: challenges and perspectives, presented by Lefteris Papagianakis, Head of Advocacy, Policy and Research at SolidarityNow
  • Microfinance Solutions for new beginnings, presented by Dimitris Kouletsis, Head of Operations at The People’s Trust
  • A new inclusive business model presented by Andreas Stefanidis, President of the Academy of Entrepreneurship and Vicky Stavropoulou, Project Manager at Organisation Earth
  • Entrepreneurship Counselling – Women’s Social Entrepreneurship in the context of Equality Works project presented by Katerina Kapnisi, Career Counsellor – Coordinator at Generation 2.0 for Rights, Equality & Diversity
  • Presentation of the TREND project and TREND Online Platform by Alessandro Carbone, Senior Project Manager and Vicky Axaopoulou, EU Project Manager Assistant at the Academy of Entrepreneurship
  • TREND 2.0 – Empowerment and entrepreneurship training for people in transition in Europe, presented by Rita Anson, Project Manager and Nilufar Qaravi, Partner at Oslo International Hub

Regarding project material, all the content of the platform, and most importantly, the training courses related to entrepreneurship are now uploaded, and the final step will be the uploading of the translated versions (French and Arabic). 

At this stage, if you are interested to get access to the courses, please send us an email at info@akep.eu stating your full name and e-mail address. 

The End Conference for TREND where all the Intellectual Outputs will be presented to relevant partners and/or interested parties will be held in Norway on December 4, COVID-19 permitted.