SOUP Sharing

<< Background >>The interest in being an entrepreneur amongst youngsters are growing, however the difficulties in getting an initiative starting can be overwhelming, both in terms of lack of financial support, but also in terms of knowledge thereof. We had come across a concept that could, with adaption, be a possible solution that embarked both issues. We wanted to create a supportive community and an event for gathering in order to network and help young entrepreneurs follow their dreams and learn how to implement projects or start a small business. By setting up a SOUP event we furthermore wanted to give the power to the people by implementing a democratic voting system, where the audience members themselves got to vote on the most interesting project of the event. Community driven activities, we believed would be the way forward and we wanted to explore the impact an event like this could have as well as the cultural differences needed to reach the intended goal. << Objectives >>We aim to create a community of support, by having the people of the community donate and vote for a project to be funded. In this way the project funded will already have a seed planted in the community and gained an interest from possible clients/users to be involved in the outcome of the project. Not only will the community gain awareness into the ideas of local entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurs themselves will have the opportunity to test out their idea, to see if there is a market for their proposal. They will at the same time also be guided with suggestions of how to improve their initial idea to make it more suitable for the market.We will host workshops on various topics for both the entrepreneurs and the community to gain knowledge and experience and to hopefully gain a sense of initiative to implement a project themselves.We aim to build a strong independent community that has the ability to support itself on its own in a circular economy.“The money the community donates will resonate into something else of value for the community”The aim for the E+ project is to apply this method of thinking into other European cities and to create a network across borders for entrepreneurs to develop even bigger projects together.<< Implementation >>In the duration of 2 years we had;4 TPMs - each held at a different location and country3+ local events hosted by each partnering country, meaning 3x8=24 local events reaching hundreds of young people and building a communityCreation of a guidebook as project result, combining all the finds and data of cultural differences and how to set up your own SOUP event. 8 multiplier events - each partner hosted a multiplier event locally to share the project result in terms of a guidebook. 1 LTT - which turned out to be more of a compact training on how to do SOUP events, where we used to guidebook as reference and could share the results through this training as well. Social media campaign, which is still ongoing. << Results >>We created a digital publication of how to implement SOUP events in Europe, based on the experiences of the partnering countries and which cultural aspect, you should take into consideration when implementing. We up-skilled ourselves and all the stakeholders involved in the cultural differences and how to work together on a common goal, that requires detailed knowledge of legislation in the European countries as well as the local communities cultures, which can have a subculture, that has different needs and wishes for them, than the main culture of a certain country.