Map Satellite Text

European selection for enterprise in the Canal Area

 - ©Boost Your Talent

2013-07-09 – BoostYour Talent, a project to increase young people’s entrepreneurial awareness in the Canal Area with support from the Brussels Region and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), is one of the two Belgian nominees for 2013 for the annual European Enterprise Promotion Awards organised by the European Commission.

The awards, launched in 2005, offer recognition and reward every year for the public-sector or mixed initiatives at national, regional or local level that have been most effective in promoting enterprise and entrepreneurship in Europe. Their goal is to present and share the best policies and practices in this field. Each MemberStatemay select two projects, which are then entered for the competition at European level.

An initiative of the Brussels Region

Every year, the Federal Public Service for the Economy organises the Belgian preliminary selection in collaboration with the Communities and the Regions. This year, six participants responded to the call for entries for the seventh series of awards. The projects submitted are evaluated on the basis of the following criteria: originality and feasibility; impact on the local economy; improvement of relations between actors at local level; and potential for transposition to other regions of Europe.

An independent panel – including prominent figures from the academic world, the vocational training sector, the professional organisations representing SMEs and the federal and regional authorities concerned – chose the two Belgian nominees: the ‘Starterscontract voor ondernemers’, one of the pillars of the policy conducted by the city of Ghent for start-up businesses; and Boost Your Talent (BYT), initiated by the Brussels-Capital Region and run by the Brussels Enterprise Agency (BEA).

Working with schools

The BYT project is an entrepreneurial awareness programme targeting young people from the central districts of Brussels, near the Canal: it aims to develop an entrepreneurial culture both in and out of school, in partnership with organisations with experience in this field (including ICHEC-PME, Groupe One, Les Jeunes Entreprises and UNIZO). Since the end of 2008, 8,300 young people and around a hundred teachers have followed the programme, and over 400 teachers/activity leaders have been involved in the project.

In mid-September, a European panel will examine the national projects that have been submitted and draw up a list of selected projects which will be circulated in connection with the competition’s European final. The seventh European Enterprise Promotion Awards will conclude with the prize-giving ceremony in Vilnius, Lithuania, in late November 2013.

More info: