Together we are more creative: ideas for green businesses from Innovathon

Within the project “INN @ SE – Youth Participation through Innovative Social Entrepreneurship” on June 6, in the Youth Center in the municipality of Centar “Matichno”, ARNO organized an Innovathon for ideas for social enterprises. Under the slogan “Only One Earth”, the event marked World Environment Day. The Innovathon offered a format of a dynamic, experimental event in which creative people and activists worked in teams with different stakeholders and institutions in order to find business solutions for environmental issues. Through the use of creative methodologies (open innovation and design thinking) the participants generated ideas through which they would revitalize abandoned vineyards, use rice harp, promote local compost facility, run a vegetarian pig ranch, presented an idea for repairing furniture that will be used by local institutions, and also ideated green hub for civic participation and green startups.

The jury consisting of: Suzana Trajkovska Kochankovska (Eptisa project for support of social enterprises), Edward Sofeski (Chamber of Small Business), Aleksandra Iloska (Public), Stefani Prenkova (Indoor Garden) and Vladimir Gjorgjievski (RYCO) selecte the team “Rebel” with their idea to run a social enterprise that will hire people from marginalized categories to repair and sell old furniture – available as the first choice for equipping the interior of institutions and citizens homes.

“Our main impact on society will be the reuse of furnited, by reducing its presence in landfills and reducing illegal landfills.” The idea is imagined to unite:80 municipalities in the Republic of N. Macedonia, including the City of Skopje, utility companies, vocational schools that we see as partners for the preservation of crafts and learning skills. Stated the team members: Elif, Maja, Sara, Zafir, Mila, Ljubomir, Mariana from the “Rebel” team.

All participants were greeted for their energy and teamwork, and were additionally encouraged by the Director of the National Agency for European Programs and Mobility – Marko Gjeorgjievski and Julia Malahova – Youth Officer in the Municipality of Centar to continue with cross-sectoral inspiration and action.

With this event, ARNO symbolically observed the World Environment Day and announced that all the Intellectual Outputs that were produced under the project will be available for free use: research, educational digital game, manual with new methodologies and a new Macedonian civic open data initiative for sharing news and resources for social entrepreneurship. ARNO announced that all the acquired knowledge and inspiration from this project will be used in the continuation of the RISE project which will be implemented for the next 3 years and will offer support for young social entrepreneurs.

The project “INN @ SE – Youth Participation through Innovative Social Entrepreneurship” is coordinated by the Pedagogical University of Krakow in Poland, implemented in partnership with Desert Bloom from Jordan, ARTER from Italy, and ARNO from Macedonia. The project aims to promote social entrepreneurship education for young people through an innovative approach, based on the results of scientific research and cross-sectoral cooperation. The project is funded by the European Commission, through the Erasmus + Program.