YEP 5.0: Young entrepreneurship programme

AIDA CCI – Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Aveiro District is a leading business organization in Portugal’s Aveiro region, with a strong presence across the North and Centre regions of the country.

As promoter of YEP 5.0 – Young Entrepreneurship Program, AIDA CCI set out to energize entrepreneurial spirit among young people and strengthen regional innovation. The project was positioned as a flagship initiative to drive value creation and connect young people to the business and technology ecosystem, fostering youth entrepreneurship and supporting the development of new business ideas.

The main challenge was mobilizing young people around entrepreneurship and turning early-stage ideas into projects with real development potential.

It was equally important to create conditions that would bring participants closer to the entrepreneurial ecosystem, build their skills, and help mature ideas across four regional smart-specialization domains: agro-industry, ICT, materials, and the sea economy.

Gestluz Consultores, now Civitta, supported the project’s rollout by running awareness sessions in schools and universities, launching an idea competition, running pitch sessions and themed training, and organizing visits to companies and to science and technology parks.

A group of mentors was also brought together to guide the development of participants’ business ideas. In addition, five White Papers were produced to capture the knowledge generated and support its dissemination, and the team took part in accompanying participants on a visit to Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The project reached around 600 young people through its awareness activities and received 29 business ideas, 15 of which were selected for one-on-one mentoring. The winning projects shared cash prizes totalling €5,000.

Qualitatively, YEP 5.0 helped build a stronger entrepreneurial culture among young people, bring them closer to the business and technology sector, and spark new ideas with genuine development potential.

This case shows how important structured programmes are for encouraging youth entrepreneurship and connecting emerging talent to the innovation ecosystem. It also shows that combining awareness-raising, mentoring, idea competitions and knowledge production can have a real, concrete impact on maturing new projects.