Belgrade, February 9, 2022 – Two teams with great entrepreneurial ideas and a social mission were selected to receive financial, mentoring and promotional support within the II cycle of Regional Incubator for Social Entrepreneurs – RISE program.
Winning team “Izađi u bar” is starting a first LGBTQ+ cafe in Novi Sad that will provide employment opportunities for people from the community who have difficulties in finding a job due to discrimination, while the other winning team is represented by young women who are developing a application “Ski Easy” that aims to solve the problem of navigating crowds on the ski slopes and to contribute to the pleasure and safety of both skiers and hikers during the summer months in the mountains. Each of these two teams will receive 2,500 euros in financial support, additional mentoring and professional support in developing their businesses as well as creating a promotional video.
Seven teams of young social entrepreneurs participated in the competition for the II cycle of the RISE program and through 5-minute presentations they presented their business solutions for social problems to an expert jury, made up of professionals from financial institutions, the NGO sector and an incubator for social entrepreneurship.
RISE – Regional Incubator for Social Entrepreneurs is a regional support program for young social entrepreneurs implemented by Smart Kolektiv within Serbia.
In the first phase of the program – Phase of Ideation, which lasted four months, seven selected teams with the support of Smart Kolektiv and more than ten experts gained knowledge in the field of developing their business model, defining their social mission, users and solutions, customer analysis and market research, marketing, financial management and public speaking. In addition to the trainings, a total of 45 mentoring sessions and one-on-one consultations were held with the teams.
Congratulations to the winners as well as to all the other teams that have worked diligently and dedicatedly in the past months to create business for a better society!
Find out more about the teams of the second generation of the RISE program HERE.
The RISE project is developed and supervised by a consortium consisting of the Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO), GROUPE SOS Pulse, the South East European Youth Network (SEEYN), the Institut Français and the Franco-German Youth Office (OFAJ), and implemented by six local incubators – Smart Kolektiv (Serbia), IPC Tehnopolis (Montenegro), ARNO (Northern Macedonia), Balkan Green Foundation (Kosovo), Nešto više (BIH) and Yunus Social Business (Albania). RISE is co-financed by the French Development Agency (AFD) and the Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO). More about the RISE program.
