Context The BASET project was prepared and respectively implemented within the context of the rapid development of social entrepreneurship and the recent development of social impact that is sought by many companies and entrepreneurs. It is however still a problem for the organizations in this field to be productive and successful with the absent of educational, financial and other support and legal framework in many countries. BASET has two primary target groups since the very beginning - educators or trainers and investors. The educators include teachers and trainers, coaches, consultants, mentors, lecturers, SME experts, investors, and other professionals providing training and support services to entrepreneurs and companies. Throughout the project, we kept the broad group of educators as a common term and way of describing them. In our research phase, we confirmed and verified the need for training of these experts in order for them to do their business and trainings. Investors were the second group of the project. Business support and training organizations together with financial institutions were involved in many of the activities such as dissemination, verification, testing of the intellectual outputs. Their feedback was taken into consideration and everything was updated and finalized according to their expectations. They were equipped and trained on how to train and inspire social entrepreneurs to innovate, use adjusted for social business tools and templates, access to business networks and collected case studies of good practices and know-how on how to mentor and use new teaching methods based on gamification and visualization. ObjectivesThe main objective of the project is to foster social entrepreneurship in Europe through elaborating, testing and providing a set of learning & training instruments to educators and investors. It is the different level of development of the law, the framework, the investments in the participating countries - BG, GR, BE, UK - that we leveraged on in order to fulfill the objective and support the social entrepreneurs as the ultimate results via preparation of the respective educators and investors for them. UK and BE have a solid background in social impact and businesses whereas BG and GR are still lagging behind with the law being under development. Partner organizationsThe partnership includes five participants from four countries: KISMC - non-profit organisation in Bulgaria with main focus on development of competencies for adults in innovation management, creativity and entrepreneurship; CEED – an experienced business support organization in the entrepreneurship development in Bulgaria; IDEC - a consultancy with an accredited lifelong learning centre in Greece organizing in-service training courses for teachers and trainers, informal learning and vocational training; Caban Capital - a fund manager in the UK providing opportunities for investors to invest in entrepreneurs through services each business requires to be successful; and Creative District - a Brussels-based organization supporting initiatives in the creative and cultural industries for societal impact through providing innovation spaces for guidance and support of entrepreneurs. ActivitiesThe activities were two main groups: development of results and materials, i.e. intellectual outputs and research; management activities covering quality assurance, project management, project preparation, monitoring and evaluation, dissemination, exploitation, and sustainability. They were undertaken in strict division and responsibility of all partners. Results and participantsThe project outcome is a clarified holistic model for training educators to contribute to the success of social entrepreneurs. The model consists of three main outputs: 1. Social Entrepreneurship Development Model - practical tool for educators and hands-on guidance that helps entrepreneurs carry out their social mission more effectively; 2. Train the Trainers Toolkit - providing educators with background knowledge, training package of templates, tools and exercises together with other materials in order to support them to train social entrepreneurs; 3. Train the Investors Handbook targeting directly investors who seek the social impact of their investment with the respective tools and new models that reflect the social value and risk. Additional results: international conference on social entrepreneurship, two short terms (5 days) training to test the outputs and verify results, testing of courses in focus groups and national seminars, fifty trained educators and investors, five project meetings open to the target group. SustainabilityThe project established the conditions - both technical and operational - for the ongoing development and support of social enterprises by sharing best practices, tools, new model and materials for training and investing in them.

DigiThink stands for Design thinking for digital innovation. The project aims to develop a new course to be implemented as part of HEIs' curricula on this topic. The idea behind DigiThink is to apply design thinking methodology for digital innovative business creation. The project has four key intellectual outputs: Course syllabus and learning methodology; training and learning materials, open educational resources. it is based on three concepts: design thinking, social and digital innovation. Design thinking incorporates constituent or consumer insights in depth and rapid prototyping, all aimed at getting beyond the assumptions that block effective solutions. Design thinking—inherently optimistic, constructive, and experiential—addresses the needs of the people who will consume a product or service and the infrastructure that enables it. Businesses are embracing design thinking because it helps them be more innovative, better differentiate their brands, and bring their products and services to market faster. Nonprofits are beginning to use design thinking as well to develop better solutions to social problems. Design thinking crosses the traditional boundaries between public, for-profit, and nonprofit sectors. By working closely with the clients and consumers, design thinking allows high-impact solutions to bubble up from below rather than being imposed from the top. We are following the five steps in the process - empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test - leading to development of new digital products and services by students working in teams who wish to develop new social and digital businesses.Social entrepreneurship is an emerging field focused on formation and growth of ventures (nonprofit, for-profit or hybrid) that have at their core a mission to have a positive social or environmental impact on the world. The field includes founders, funders, intermediaries, academics, board members and more; social enterprise: a social purpose venture with a business model that relies primarily (or exclusively) on earned income to cover its operations. The last output Model and guide for implementation will provide guidance and recommendations on how to implement this model in other universities and institutions who wish to teach entrepreneurship, apply design thinking for digital and social innovations, drive innovative products and services. This model and guide will be used in order to produce publications and JCR article about the project. The aim of this future action is to promote the diffusion of the project activities and to raise awareness about this topic in education. he final version of the learning materials will be designed for distance learning in the learning management system - LMS (like Moodle). This includes helping students start digital business by using step-by-step process based on design thinking to generate not only concepts but prototypes that can be undertaken as a business by new business models and/or provided to existing businesses and social ventures for further use and implementation.

"Project contextThe Internet of Things (IoT) represents a massive opportunity for businesses and consumers. Most organizations are only just starting to scratch the surface of what they can achieve with IoT solutions. On the other hand, security is what really needs to be designed from the very beginning of developing IoT services and products. IoTNuggets is innovative in two ways - one in content and topic, the other - new method for learning - learning nuggets. Nuggets are capsules of information to be used in the right moment, engaging and interactive, multimedia enabled. Nuggets distill information and target specific information to utilize the learners' time efficiently so that specialists can build and upgrade their skills and knowledge in small chunks of content. We are targeting two target groups: - VET providers and trainers in the ICT field - software engineers and programmers who need and want to specialize in cybersecurity of the ecosystem of IoT - to work either for a company or to start their own business in this field. Clearly, cybersecurity pros should keep their skills up to date through continuous education and training, but unfortunately, the research also indicates this isn’t happening Objectives Our aim is to prepare specialists in data and security protection within the IoT ecosystem based on new approach of ""learning nuggets"" for fast and on-demand learning. The specific goals supporting it are: - development of a framework for qualification of new technical experts in IoT cybersecurity - equipping VET learners and trainers with methodological guidance, tools, and instruments for training in IoT security - develop and try out a CPD course for testing and further use - support entrepreneurs to start a business in the IoT ecosystem - develop an innovative model for learning - ""learning nuggets"" Participants IoTNuggets has involved the target groups, relevant stakeholders, colleagues from our organizations, current and potential partners outside the project: - cybersecurity and IoT VET trainers; - programmers and software engineers and entrepreneurs in IoT; - policymakers, associations, business, and IT organizations, IoT experts and other stakeholders; - faculties and departments of both universities.Three face-to-face and two online transnational project meetings are delivered and many supportive online meetings. The attendees are one or two representatives from each partners' team. The reason for modification in project management is based on the COVID-19 pandemic. Activities Outputs development activities; One short-term staff training was organized in Greece in month 13; Five transnational project meetings - 3 in the present and 2 online; Two multiplier events are planned: E1 in Piraeus in month 13 with 50 participants and E2 - international conference in Bulgaria in month 24 with 120 participants. Management activities: Project preparation, project management plan, Evaluation and monitoring, Dissemination, risk management, Closure, outputs development MethodologyIoTNuggets has iterative and incremental character as it aims to develop a new methodology, education content, CPD course, complimentary training materials (three sets of toolkits) and digital learning. It has specific deliverables and an end-point which is an important milestone in the overall project. Phases: PREPARATION, IMPLEMENTATION: It is split into two parts - Project management activities and Outputs development.The output development process has followed the design thinking process in its essence following the 5 steps: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test. ; FINALIZATION; CLOSURE. Results and impactIoTNuggets team produced five intellectual outputs as key results:O1 Competence frameworkO2 Methodology and syllabus for IoT cyber-securityO3 VET trainers toolkit O4 Learning nuggetsO5 Toolkit for IoT entrepreneursFinal publication with a summary of the project with success stories from the testing has been distributed. It serves as guidelines for further use and model for implementation for VET organizations, SME's Learning and development, and other organizations. Six newsletters are generated as well showing milestones, achieved results and trends. Long-term benefitsWe support the rapidly increasing demand for cyber-security specialists who help the growth of the EU SMEs/start-ups, and its positive influence the innovation performance. We go one level further and narrow the scope of cyber-security to the ""hot spot"" of IoT."

There are political incentives for start-ups and scale-ups, like the Commission's Start-up and Scale-up Initiative. It is supposed to bring Europe's innovative SMEs different opportunities to grow and find there place in the global competitive market. There are also supporting tools for the beginning of the entrepreneurial life, but few companies survive beyond the critical first few years. There are numerous mentors and advisers, forming a huge consulting society, each of them claiming high competence and ability to lead a company to the top of the world. It is very difficult for the entrepreneurs, especially having not much experience, to assess the value, which a specific consulting could bring. The strong EC commitment is to improve this situation. There’s not much of a support system for more mature, small companies with proven business models. With this project creates support system in the field of adult education and training. The Steps2Scale developed a harmonized qualification framework for the profession Scaling up adviser which doesn’t ‘exist in any EU country. With the creation of a harmonized occupation profile the consortium also creates the first network and community of scaling up mentors and envoys. In order to prepare the first scaling up advisers, the project also developed a harmonized training and learning methodology which was field tested during the project implementation. The Steps2Scale studied and implemented the best existing practices throughout EU. Professionals from different communities and possessing a variety of expertise gave valuable recommendations, which were, mostly, reflected. During the project course it was presented before similar project in the Alps region and received extremely positive feedback. In addition, the quality of the products is guaranteed by the logical three phase approach applied to them: development, testing and finalizing. The project reached thousands of representatives of the target groups and stakeholders through various communication channels. It is targeted to start-ups and spin-offs with at least 5 years of experience, balanced business plan and defined local market niche; SMEs with innovative product which is already well placed on the local market and has export potential; SMEs with export strategy and potential, but still local players. 82 entrepreneurs from the target group were trained while testing the training and learning methodology. The project partners utilized almost every opportunity to promote the Steps2Scale: Enterprise Europe Network meetings, side events with appropriate topics, similar projects etc. Consortium is convinced that high level of awareness among the business environment and the respective decision making public bodies. All developed materials are already published and available on the dedicated website, which will serve as an open platform after the project end, where members of the scaling-up community will exchange ideas and knowledge and interested entrepreneurs and educators (more than 50,000 already registered) will have direct access to the Scaling-up Envoys network. The deliverables were published in the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform as well. This way more people can benefit from the project even after its end. The Steps2Scale will create an environment that fosters competitiveness, business thinking, innovation and creativity. The scaling-up adviser is the profession of one more competitive and fast growing future of the EU. The project partners believe that with Steps2Scale will lay the foundation with knowledge which will eventually result in more scaling up SMEs in Europe.

"The key topics within our project are design thinking and disruptive innovation processes to develop smart city solutions by SMEs. Another aspect is the user experience design. Design thinking is able to approach more closely the unmet needs of a community by observing its behaviour.The technology advancement is too fast for the managers and owners to respond and adjust to the market. Smart city solutions work in the quadruple helix: society(social innovation)-research- public authorities- business. A smart city is defined as “a community of average technology size, interconnected and sustainable, comfortable, attractive and secure”. The number of smart-city solutions is booming, and many new technologies are being utilized to improve the city of the future. However, governments are not seeing the results they aimed for and one of the main causes for this is the digital skill gap. The digital skill gap is a two-factor problem: from one side the need is unrealized by citizens as they don't know about the smart solutions; from another - there is a lack of skilled personnel to implement and maintain tech solutions of SMEs.The aim of the project is to develop the competences of the SME managers and owners to drive smart disruptive technology business. More specifically we combine management and digital skills and provide: a map of digital disruptive technologies; training program with modules and materials for smart innovation; toolkit with business models, tools for UX and DT process, social innovation aspects, platform for learning with materials and tools.The target groups of our project are:- SME managers and owners of smart city technology businesses are the primary - those who are and want to be ""smart innovators"";- VET trainers as secondary group.The main results of the project are the intellectual outputs with the respective interim products/deliverables:IO1 Map of digital and smart disruptionsO1/A1 Key areas of smart technology innovation - we will conduct a study to narrow the scope of technology areas of smart innovations and define key success factors and applications to prepare the map.O1/A2 Case studies collection and focus groups - each partner will select two SMEs in the field of smart technologies and have interviews with their managers/owners to create a state of the art case study. This will generate a case study collection and initial contacts of the target group to be further involved in the project.O1/A3 Development of the map the map itself will consist of: description of the technological areas, challenges and opportunities for designing, developing and managing smart city innovative solutionsO1/A4 Internal testing - this part of each output will be done either during project meeting and/or short-term staff training event in month 13. There will be short evaluation report after each internal testing before going to testing with the target group.O1/A5 Finalization and translation is also a common phase of each output and defines the final translated versions.IO2 Training program for smart disruptive innovation - we will develop a program covering analytical, interdisciplinary critical thinking, management and technological skills; we will define the key topics of interdisciplinary knowledge across technology, social sciences and management disciplines.O2/A1 Capabilities framework of smart innovation - common framework with key competences, skills and knowledge.O2/A2 Training modules for smart innovation - specific modules with learning elements and assessment criteria, including self-assessment tools, thesaurus, materials.IO3 Training toolkit for managers and owners of smart businessesO1/A1 Business model cards for smart solutions - we will create a set of explanatory cards with definitions, examples and frameworks for innovative business models.O1/A2 User experience design and design thinking process and tools - this will be a collection of tools, description and materials for UX design and design thinking process.O1/A3 Disruptive technologies for social innovation development - this part will focus on social innovations in the context of smart city solutions.IO4 Digital platform for smart innovationsO4/A1 Simulation process for rapid prototyping - detailed step-by-step process of how to do rapid prototyping and what tools to be used will be developed. O4/A2 UX design and design thinking games.The desired impact on the target groups is expected to be stronger and immediate at local and regional level where partners’ and their members’ apply the Smart City concept and thus our results and beneficial impact is expected to be more tangible. Additionally to the impact on the target groups, the project is expected to have a positive longer-term benefit for the local and regional economy as Smart city entails the creation of inter company and inter sectoral links, for an inter-connected city. It relates to the new phenomenon of city-as-a-platform creation."