Course Type: Vocational Training
Duration: 25 hours
Cost: Free
Language: English, Bulgarian, German, Italian, Greek and Spanish
Lessons: Referable according to one’s time availability
Brought to you by: OREN – A Toolbox for Rural Entrepreneurs
Initiative partners:
- SYstem Dynamics Italian Chapter (SYDIC)
- Association of Cities and Regions for sustainable Resource management (ACR+)
- Cámara Badajoz
- Federconsumatori Lazio
- Symplexis
- Euro Education Bulgaria
- Intelligent Decision Support System (IDS)
- Italian Chamber of Commerce for Germany (ITKAM)
Course Description.
OREN Course for Rural Entrepreneurship is the result of the OREN project, funded by ERASMUS+ from February 2022 to the end of 2024. It is a free course aimed at entrepreneurs already active in the rural sector (tourism, agribusiness, sustainable energy, and forestry), or aspiring ones, who intend to increase their knowledge for improving business performance.
It stems from the need to enhance and develop the potential of Europe’s rural areas, communities and businesses by rethinking enterprises with respect to the changes taking place. Above all, it aims to define strategies for a sustainable, networked business future, promoting the adoption of systems thinking as a driver of success in a local multi-stakeholder environment. The course therefore provides the tools to promote positive changes in communities and foster sustainable competitiveness and development.
Summary of topics covered and tools offered
The course also prepares for the use of an interactive simulation and learning environment by offering guidelines, resources, databases, online self-study lessons, related assessment tests, according to 5 modules:
- EUROPEAN AND NATIONAL RURAL POLICIES FRAMEWORK
- BUSINESS MANAGEMENT SKILLS
- SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION SKILLS
- COMMUNICATION AND SOFT SKILLS
- MODELLING AND SIMULATION IN THE OREN PLATFORM
Professional opportunities and skills acquired
Entrepreneurs acquire and improve technical and managerial skills, knowledge and understanding of their impacts in economic, environmental and social terms, exploring through simulation of their business models opportunities to be able to reduce them.
In addition, they learn to analyze dynamics in their communities; understand real-world scenarios, business management, and European and national development and innovation policies; and improve communication of their enterprise and initiative.
They can create, simulate, test and revise their real Business Plan in risk-free scenarios as robust and effective micro-worlds. Specifically serving an integrated platform for Business Prototyping, they analyze each feature, the reaction of business assumptions to the context and the passage of time. Thus exploring new business opportunities can elevate existing businesses and launch new ventures throughsustainable, open and competitive innovation.
Finally, OREN’s local multi-stakeholder approach encourages collaboration between rural enterprises and other stakeholders, stimulating synergies to counter external pressures and issues with social and environmental solutions. This is made possible through a Stakeholder Map, i.e., a searchable database in which the rural entrepreneur can search for potential partners and actors with whom to synergize based on, for example, geographic area of interest, sector, and so on.
