The session „How to capture the entrepreneurial potential of women? Demonstrating various approaches in education and in business to boost entrepreneurial mindsetheld at EuroScience Open Forum 2020 by our colleagues and consortium partners of ifempower project was a big success last Saturday. Although all the speakers had to present remotely due to the current pandemic situation, thanks to the professional organization of ESOF 2020 team, the workshop went smooth and engaged the audience virtually.

The EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) is a science conference dedicated to scientific research and innovation, organized every two years. Each conference aims to deliver stimulating content and lively debate around the latest advancements and discoveries in the sciences, humanities and social sciences.

The ifempower session was part of the Entrepreneurship Education section with the aim of highlighting the importance of entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions and businesses, focusing particularly on potential female entrepreneurs.

Fanni Bobák, moderator, hit the session with an interactive game via Slido to make the audience aware of some interesting facts about female entrepreneurs. For instance, did you know that women’s main motivation to launch a business are interest and hobby instead of money? But it is also important to highlight, that one of the main hindrances and challenges for women are self-confidence and family.

ifempower and the research study Women Entrepreneurs in Europe: Challenges, Strategies and Policies’ was presented by Virág Zsár, Head of Division for International Cooperation at HETFA Research Institute, then followed by Orsolya Gergely, Assistant Professor at Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania about the ifempower university course module, the importance of entrepreneurship education, and the challenges COVID-19 caused to the project. Afterwards, Jürgen Raizner, Director of Steinbeis Transfer Center East-West Joint-Ventures introduced the mentorship and support point programme by highlighting the importance of role models. (ifempower especially focuses on giving real life experiences, that is why the ‘Inspirational Stories’ video series was started.) Finally, Fanni Erzsébet Tóth, Lecturer at Sigmund Freud University introduced the methodology of winter/summer schools, the events which will prepare the participating students to their final pitch about their business ideas in front of business angels and stakeholders.

ESOF2020 Trieste in numbers

“Some 2500 people registered for the event; among these, more than 1000 participated in person and 1400 people connected remotely every day. On average each event was attended online by around 300 people, and the event saw 4300 overall virtual visits. ESOF2020 was in the global spotlight: online visitors came from 52 countries across 5 continents.

As regards online communication, and in particular social networks, the ESOF2020 Facebook page has reached more than half a million people, with 26,000 interactions. There were 200,000 interactions on Twitter and 237,000 visits on the ESOF2020 website.” Source: ESOF newsletter