KidVenture – increasing the entrepreneurial culture of children through gaming

Context: Entrepreneurship Education has been one of the key developmental areas for the European Union. Developing and implementing entrepreneurship education programs has been one of the main objectives in EU’s policy. According to (Eurydice, 2016). “Entrepreneurship education is about learners developing the skills and mind-set to be able to turn creative ideas into entrepreneurial action. It is considered as a key competence for all learners, supporting personal development, active citizenship, social inclusion and employability. It is relevant across the lifelong learning process, in all disciplines of learning and to all forms of education and training (formal, non-formal and informal) which contribute to an entrepreneurial spirit or behaviour, with or without a commercial objective”.Objectives:KidVenture – increasing the entrepreneurial culture of children through gaming is an EU funded project with the aim to create an innovative computer learning game for Entrepreneurship Education of children between 6 and 10 years old, for use in formal, non-formal and informal education settings, and available freely Europe wide. In order to reach this goal, the consortium studied thoroughly the notion of Entrepreneurship Education discipline in order to determine the aspects of the final product which would better serve its purpose. The design of the game was based on this literature review and represents the convergence of three involved pillars: the academia, the in-service teachers and the private enterprise sector.Number and Profile of Participating Organisations:KidVenture partners:Scuole Paritarie dell'Istituto delle Maestre Pie dell'Addolorata - Primary School in St Giovanni Italy Zakladni skola Jedovnice, okres Blansko - Primary School in Jedovnitse, Czech RepublicBoon Unipessoal, Lda - SME in Porto, PortugalCukurova Kaymakamligi - Educational Authority in dada, TurkeyAdvancis Business Services, Lda - SME focussing on training, learning tool development, Porto, PortugalPanepistimio Dytikis Makedonias (University of Western Macedonia) - University delivering training to primary school teachersKingston University - Kingston Business School specialises in Entrepreneurial Education, Kingston, UK. Main Activities: Activities contributing to delivery of the Intellectual Outcome - the KidVenture Game included Project Management and Implementation ( led by KU as coordinator ), digital media and valorisation including web design(supported by BOON), digital content production and newsletter publicity, Game production ( led by Advancics Business Services ), game pilots with schools ( led by target group partners, schools in Italy, Czech Republic and Turkey) and the Implementation guides led by UoWM. Further the dissemination of the project results have been enabled by a series of Multiplier events in Portugal, Greece and the UK. We are pleased to say that the activities and the final IO completion have been achieved by the consortium on time. Results: This computer game was designed to facilitate the learning of Entrepreneurship-related topics. In the game, players – individually or in group – create their own company and cooperate with each other to reach success by making decisions and developing joint activities iin response to different challenges (e.g. assigning different management roles to each member of the group – role playing). The general idea of the game is to simulate a necessarily simplified product development process for a Toy Robot in which the Players, playing individual roles but cooperating under the same objective, have to make decisions on product design, marketing, finances, production, to launch a successful product on the market, while facing competition of o toy factory.Results:Results include the Entrepreneurial skills framework document, the Implementation guide and the flagship IO - the KidVenture Game. The KidVenture Game can be embedded in the curricular activities and teaching of Schools as complementary teaching and assessment tool. These are the three possible scenarios of the KidVenture Game within the curriculum:· The game as an introduction to Entrepreneurship concepts, notions and Entrepreneurship literacy· The game as an in-classroom tool for parallel teaching of Entrepreneurship concepts and game play· The game as a feedback-assessment toolImpact: During the project implementation the researcher piloted the game in three schools in Turkey, Czech Republic, Greece, Portugal, UK and Italy ( reaching at least 300 children; 100 teachers). The impact on the cyber entrepreneurship skill levels in school children has been measured in a controlled experiment. The results of theproject have been recorded and presented in a case study for the European Commission and the UK National Agency, The British Council, demonstrating the effectiveness of the research –informed gamification approach to digital curriculum in schools .