<< Background >>The COVID pandemic, while challenging to so many, has had a disproportionate impact on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), bringing the rate of SME bankruptcy and closure to skyrocket and changed consumer behaviour forever, having more consumers now ordering goods online. For this reason, SMEs need to stop expecting business to return to “normal.” There’s no going back to how it was anytime soon. Even before the pandemic and economic crisis, SMEs had been fighting a fierce battle against Amazon and other e-commerce players. Those challenges have now accelerated at staggering speed. The latest data from McKinsey (2021) shows that consumers are likely to keep the behaviours they’ve adopted amid stay-at-home orders, such as always more online shopping. Undoubtedly, as COVID-19 continues to be out of control, setting up a new company in these current times has its share of challenges and this is especially true for young people. Following, Entrepreneurship is Online (EIO) will tackle the challenges that COVID-19 brought to young people-aspiring entrepreneurs, namely, the pandemic has accelerated the process of digital transformation across almost all sectors of businesses, creating opportunities but also new barriers for young people. EIO will help young people to better leverage on digital tools and set an online presence to run their future business and create solutions to solve the problems of their communities so that they can have a chance to survive the crisis and even thrive in the long term. The future envisioned post-COVID is one where young people are prepared and enabled through technology to run their business in order to operate across the EU common market. However, even though young people of today are surrounded by digital technology, they are not equally equipped for their technology rich future: various kinds of digital divides still prevail in the society. In this sense, it is possible to find young people, who want to develop their own business, but lack completely online presence skills.<< Objectives >>Following, “Entrepreneurship is Online (EIO)” aims to promote entrepreneurial education by boosting key competences in digital marketing, online presence and branding among youth workers and young people in order to improve their entrepreneurial capacity to teach and learn about how to start new businesses and how to reach current markets online. EIO specific objectives:•To create educational tools and open educational resources (OERs) about entrepreneurship and online presence for youth workers and young people and so boosting their key competences•To upgrade pedagogical skills and qualifications of youth workers in the areas covered by the project (entrepreneurship and online presence)•To provide a pedagogical strategy for youth workers that will support them to facilitate learning processes on entrepreneurship through online presence and e-learning.EIO direct target groups:-youth workers which need support to upgrade their pedagogic approach and knowledge to deliver entrepreneurial programmes which include online presence education.-Young people, including the fewer opportunities one, which need more appropriate entrepreneurial education to develop their skills for opening a business.<< Implementation >>EIO partners will realize the following activities:• Kickoff Meeting (Denmark)• EIO Handbook (project result one)• First intermediate meeting (Italy)• E-learning programme (project result two)• First training event (C1, Cyprus)• Blended mobility of young people (C2, Denmark)• Second intermediate meeting (Cyprus)• Toolkit for youth workers (project result 3)• Second training event (C3, Italy)• Methodology Pack (project result 4)• Final conference (E1, Cyprus)• Final conference (E2, Denmark)• Final conference (E3, Spain)• Final conference (E4, Denmark)• Final meeting (Spain)• Dissemination and Communication activities.The following methodology will be applied: Plan, Do, Check, Act. This aims to constantly monitor the project advancement and to ensure permanent quality improvement. This methodology also mean that steps must be realized in time bound manner as any lateness or missing parts can have direct influence on other partner work. Feedbacks will be used for the continuous improvement of the project, using the PDCA method (plan, do, check, act).<< Results >>At local level and regional level:-Partner organisations will bring the good practices and knowledge acquired to life through the implementation of new activities and programme fostering the entrepreneurial and digital skills of young people.-Improved quality and access to youth entrepreneurial training for young people with fewer opportunities. Young people will improve their digital skills and so will be able to set an online presence for their business and create value for all their community. -Inclusion of the EIO Handbook (PR1) and of the two competences frameworks for youth workers and young people, E-learning programme (PR2), Toolkit for youth workers (PR3), Methodology Pack (PR4) into the existing curricula of local and regional youth entities and other interested stakeholders, for starting offering support to young people – aspiring entrepreneurs.At national level:-The e-learning programme (PR2) and the Moodle online platform will engage relevant stakeholders in the process and introducing them to the benefits of the open learning and specifically with respect to entrepreneurship and online business presence. -To raise the discussion on the necessity to add on the mission of youth education also the duty to support young people – aspiring entrepreneurs not just in acquiring entrepreneurial skills but also digital skills that will help them once open their business to survive and success.-Inclusion of the EIO project results into the existing curricula of national youth organizations/institutions, as an additional training section focused on supporting entrepreneurs.-Better use of EU funding with an increased number of projects supporting young people – aspiring entrepreneurs etc.At European level:-Increased European competitiveness and contribution to the acceleration of economic growth through the improvement of tools linked to entrepreneurship and business creation support, helping young people in all stages of their business life cycle, avoiding that they will lost business opportunities because of the lack of an online presence and so supporting the capacity of young people to engage in growth in regional, national and international markets. -The two competence framework created for youth workers and young people (part of PR1), will provide a set of competences (knowledge, skills and personal abilities) needed in order to reach an adequate level of “command” in the online presence and entrepreneurship. -The developed multilingual PRs and e-learning programme (PR2) in English and partners languages will allow worldwide accessibility to EIO project results and so foster the use of project results a transnational level.-An increased awareness of the role that youth education can play in helping young people – aspiring entrepreneurs to face the economic crisis generated by COVID-19.