Call for Applications for the Regional Incubator for Social Entrepreneurship (RISE), a program that supports young people to develop a business with social impact, is extended until November 6. The Program is intended for young people aged 18 to 35 from Serbia and five other Western Balkans countries. Six teams from each country will be developing entrepreneurial skills during the program, and two teams from each country will be selected to receive financial support for establishing their own social enterprise. This is the third cycle of the RISE program, which gathered more than 250 entrepreneurs to develop more than 90 social ideas, while 24 projects received financial support, including Vožnjom do samostalnosti, Woman on the Way, Mountain Ways and Izađi u bar from Serbia. 

RISE – Regional Incubator for Social Entrepreneurs is a free support program for development of social entrepreneurship ideas, which is implemented in Serbia by Smart Kolektiv. Program is intended for motivated, committed youth, willing to learn and change things for the betterment of the Western Balkans. Aim of the program is to support social business ideas that will make the region a better place. 

RISE will gather young people who have an idea or innovative solution for a new and better approach to education, women’s empowerment, culture, rural development, health or employment in the community, and by learning skills and getting knowledge and experience of social entrepreneurship they will get an opportunity to solve social or environmental issues of their interest and also earn while doing it!   

RISE program consists of 2 phases – ideation and incubation. During the three months of ideation phase, you will build your idea from scratch to business model. On that journey, you will have the support of experts and mentors, with whom you will go through all important steps in starting a social enterprise.  Two best teams from Serbia, or a total of 12 teams from the region, will receive additional financial and practical support to implement their idea and improve the development of their business during the incubation phase.   

If RISE is where you want to be, sign up your team by filling out a form at this >> LINK <<. Call for applications is open until November 6, 11:59 p.m.    

Learn more about RISE program, what teams can expect on THE RISE journey and the criteria for selection at this >>LINK<<    

Find out more about Smart Kolektiv, the organization, that implements RISE program in Serbia on our website.     

The Call is launched by a group of 10 partners from the Western Balkans, Germany and France, looking for young change-makers from the region, like yourself, to help us develop social businesses for better societies.   

The RISE project is being developed and supervised by a consortium consisting of GROUPE SOS Pulse, Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO), Youth Network of Southeast Europe (SEEIN) and the French-German Youth Office (OFAJ), and six local incubators – Smart Kolektiv, IPC Technopolis, ARNO, Balkan Green Foundation, Nesto vise and Yunus Social Business. RISE is co-financed by French Development  Agency (AfD), Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO) and the European Union (EU). More about RISE program >> https://www.risewb.org/