Budapest Youth Enterprise Centre, District 9, Budapest, Hungary
Based on the EDW team’s holistic model of youth enterprise support, BYEC, led by Mária Lakatos (pictured right), offers outreach, business awareness raising, business counselling and business incubation facilities to its clients.
BYEC is open to all young people wishing to start a business, and the Centre’s main target group are clients with special needs, including those who are unemployed, physically disabled and belonging to minority ethnic groups.
The Centre has 22 units for those who need business premises, providing offices and workshops for young entrepreneurs. Rents are graduated, with those starting businesses paying a nominal rental fee. During the clients’ two-year lease, the rents rise gradually, until, towards the end of the lease, they approach market rates.
BYEC participated in the original youngbusiness.net programme and in the subsequent youngbusiness.net 1 and 2 programmes.
In the course of youngbusiness.net 1 and 2, BYEC, with the support of the EDW team:
- Raised awareness of enterprise among almost 1000 young people;
- Trained 27 counsellors and 8 trainers;
- Provided training for 590 participants;
- Held 602 business counselling meetings.
- Assisted 150 young businesses to become established.
The youngbusiness.net 3 project is extending the network developed in the youngbusiness.net 1 and 2 projects into new regions, while facilitating the cascading of knowledge and expertise from BYEC and our other ‘older’ Central European partners to four ‘new’ Central European partners, with the support of EDW. The project runs from late 2007 to the end of 2009.
EDW is supporting BYEC in helping two new partners, the Móricz Zsigmond Secondary School in Ibrány and Abigél Primary and Secondary School, in Nyíregyháza, both in Eastern Hungary, to start their business incubation programmes. BYEC completed their “Training the Trainers” sessions in the first three months of the programme, and were accredited by the Hungaraian Accreditation Body. As part of the youngbusiness.net 3 programme, BYEC is also developing a new internet platform to provide remote assistance to young entrepreneurs in the region.
In order to sustain the momentum in the longer term, a key outcome of the youngbusiness.net 3 programme will be the establishment of a Central European Society for Youth Enterprise Development. This entity will be unique to the region, with the potential to be the engine that drives forward the development, innovation and dissemination of this model of support for the foreseeable future.
"Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new."
Augustine ‘Og’ Mandino (1923 – 1996)