PARIS/WESTERN BALKASN – The “Western Balkans Youth Lab (WB6 Lab)” is a regional incubator for entrepreneurship and innovation designed for young leaders and change-makers. The AFD (Agence Française de Développement) has just allocated €500,000 to the project.
Over a three-year period (from October 2019 to September 2022), the project has two objectives:
- to create a regional ecosystem for social entrepreneurship and build its capacities: at least 216 young entrepreneurs from the region aged between 18 and 35 will receive support in their start-up projects’ design and incubation phases and will be supervised by mentors from the region and French professionals from Groupe SOS (e.g. Le Comptoir de l’Innovation in Montreuil).
- to promote and raise awareness of social entrepreneurship among young people and key public and private actors: at least 1,000 people aged 15 and above will be involved via design-thinking workshops.
The project will take place entirely within the Western Balkans region, via regional events (Regional Boost Camp, Regional forum, etc.) in each of the six RYCO Contracting Parties to ensure processes are well-linked both nationally and regionally for setting up and incubating these innovative projects. RYCO will be the main project manager.