AGILE4CIRC partners will organize the closure conference and seed funding seminar. The event will take place in a hybrid form.

Date: Thursday 27 January 2022

Time: 17.00-21.00 CET

The third transnational project meeting of the Agile4CIRC project took place on the 20^th of April 2021. Although initially planned to take place face-to-face in Valencia, due to the Covid-19 outbreak, the partners had to adapt to an online context and host the meeting through an online platform.

The Project’s activities were launched at the partnership kick-off meeting, held in Amsterdam, at the facilities of Stichting for Education, on the 26^th of September 2019.

During the meeting, the coordinator presented the main objectives and activities of the Project, while IOs’ leader organizations presented the foreseen intellectual outputs. The discussion was focused on IO1: Design of innovative methodological framework to develop a business idea in Circular Economy, that will be ready within the year. The partnership agreed on a timeline for the separate tasks that should be implemented before the finalization of the output by the University of Thessaly.

The “Training the adults and prototyping their business models for the circular economy” training activity of the AGILE4CIRC project took place from the 25^th to the 31^st of May 2021 online. These were five days of intense training full of influential speakers and interactive workshops. Thirty-seven participants from Spain, North Macedonia, Greece and Luxembourg had the opportunity to learn, discuss their entrepreneurial ideas and collaborate with other like-minded young and aspiring entrepreneurs. The training was hosted in a pleasant and friendly atmosphere in which everyone felt encouraged to participate actively. All the participants expressed their satisfaction with the training they attended and look forward to the next project incubation activities in the months to come.

The Agile4CIRC partners have successfully implemented their national pilot workshops in each project partner country. The pilot workshops were conducted with great success while all participants evaluated them positively. The piloting workshops were central in the project implementation both for the testing of the effectiveness of the training activities but also for the selection of the winner candidates that will participate in the international LTTA event of the project in May.  Although initially the pilot testing was supposed to take place face-to-face, due to the Covid-19 outbreak, all partners had to adapt and host the activities online. This led to the development of interactive online content to meet the demands of the new situation. In all partner countries,  the content of the workshops excited the participants who felt engaged and part of a dynamic training environment.

In Spain, Meraki and IBOX partners conducted two pilot workshops with English and Spanish speaking participants who wish to become active entrepreneurs in the circular economy and were introduced to important agile management concepts. In Greece, the University of Thessaly hosted a national pilot with high participation rates. All participants had the opportunity to be immersed in innovative agile business management methods and also come up with fresh business ideas. In Luxembourg, Novel Group hosted a 2-day pilot workshop that gave the opportunity to participants of various backgrounds and keen interest in the circular economy to come up with the first draft of their entrepreneurial vision. In North Macedonia, the national pilot was hosted by Foster and addressed two groups, long-term unemployed people and Roma groups with a vision for innovative business creations in the circular economy. When it comes to the Netherlands, Stichting for education on Agility Liberating Structures has conducted international workshops on the material used and has managed to validate the effectiveness of all activities used in the pilot workshops.

Following the completion of the pilot workshops, the LTTA event of the project is expected to take place in the last week of May, from the 25^th of May to the 31^st of May, and the Agile4CIRC partnership is excited about it! If you are interested in the circular economy and business innovation, follow the project’s activities to know more!