Funded Projects 2014-2020

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Project W-POWER

Project Acronym W-POWER
Project Title Empowering women entrepreneurs in sparsely populated communities
Project subsite

Summary

W-POWER aims for equal growth and  increase in the contribution of women to regional economy in sparsely populated Northern and Arctic communities, as women leaving the North is one of the main challenges to beat in the region. All project partner regions suffer from similar challenges caused by peripherality, which creates a strong argument for transnational cooperation. Project makes a difference for rural businesses by providing transnational learning and capacity building possibilities, but also creating new business concepts and support mechanisms. W-POWER creates new start-ups, helps to take the next step of maturity from start-up, and supports the growing phase of existing SMEs. In addition, business advisory bodies will get new tools for gender-sensitive coaching and diversity management.

Project objectives include capacity building of women entrepreneurs, improvement of gender-related business advisory services, and encouragement for self-employment in sparsely populated communities. Development work of W-POWER is based on actual needs, joint collaboration and close engagement with key stakeholders in a quadruple-helix manner. Project partnership is versatile and covers most of the NPA regions. Perspective of the project development work is far beyond the project lifetime, thus resulting longlasting outputs. As a result, greater understanding of regional and transnational barriers which impact negatively on women entrepreneurs will be reached, as well as mechanisms to overcome the barriers. Project implementation is divided to four work packages:
T1: Improvement of regional business environment
T2: Transnational learning
T3: Gender-sensitive coaching concept
T4: innovation platform for new pre-startups

W-POWER supports the implementation of key EU and national policies related to empowerment of women entrepreneurship. Project also takes into account the Arctic Dimension and horizontal principles.

Objectives

Capacity building of women entrepreneurs

Capacity building of women entrepreneurs in relation to transnational networks, new business models and transversal business skills (e.g. innovation skills). Transnational learning empowers the women entrepreneurs and motivates to develop their business.

Improvement of gender-related business advisory services

Business advisory bodies across the NPA region will get tools for gender-sensitive business support and diversity management. Also, new service providers will start their business based on tools created during the project.

Encouragement for self-employment in sparsely populated communities

Project motivates skilled women to consider entrepreneurship as a possibility to make their living in rural communities of NPA region. Innovation platform piloted in the project provides a tool for new business ideas and innovations, with support system.

 

 

Impacts

Tangible

Business development:

The project was set up to encourage existing and future women entrepreneurs in sparsely populated areas to start, develop and grow their businesses. Altogether 806 woman entrepreneurs or persons willing to start a business participated in the project activities such as trainings, networking, workshops, and mentoring. Totally 162 new business ideas were developed in the innovation platform. The feedback from the participants was very positive. Many of them said that the project has changed their business lives, boosted their confidence to take the critical step towards entrepreneurship or helped them to find new partners or business networks. Many women entrepreneurs work alone and therefore having a network of likeminded people has been crucial for them.

 
Improved competitiveness:

The project mapped the challenges, needs and opportunities that women entrepreneurs in remote areas are experiencing. Based on these findings, the team prepared business support tutorials and launched a Peer-to-Peer mentoring programme. Entrepreneurs with the same background, but from different countries were matched together. Topics such as marketing, sales, but also self-management and time were the most discussed ones among the pairs. Women said that these meetings brought joy and positivity to their everyday life of solo entrepreneurs. The Business Idea Competition has given many women a boost and confidence to bring business ideas in action and they referred to it as “one of the best experiences”.

 

Intangible

Changing attitude and behaviour:

The project aimed at changing attitude towards woman entrepreneurship. Thanks to its gender sensitive coaching concept, some business advisors are now better equipped to recognize the special needs of underrepresented groups (women, indigenous people, immigrants) and can provide more appropriate and motivating coaching in the future. Through its activities and media appearances, the project strived to change the way women entrepreneurs are seen and to raise awareness about their challenges, possibilities, needs, and achievements. One such example was an interview with Kate Suopajarvi from Arctic Cherry, who focuses on promoting diversity and body positivity.

 

Lead Partner

Partners

Project Info

Theme
Business development, trade, marketing
Priority
2 Entrepreneurship
Objective
2.1 Improved support systems for SMEs
Project duration
01-09-18 to 31-08-21
Total budget
1 690 099 EUR
NPA co-financing
1 069 598 EUR
Target groups
enterprise, including SME
business support organisation
General public
interest groups including NGOs
higher education and research
sectoral agency
regional public authority
Joint Secretariat Desk Officer
Kalle Pakalèn