In the framework of YEE's long-term project "Green Entrepreneurship" the training course 'How to be a green entrepreneur' took place in Toulcuv Dvur, Prague's ecological centre between 12 and 20 October. The training was organised with the aim to empower young people and train their basic skills on how to create green start-ups. 23 enthusiastic young future entrepreneurs gathered from all around Europe to be inspired by environmental friendly ideas and successful examples of green start-ups.

On the first day, after some get-to-know each other, the place and the programme, all of the participants had the possibility to present and elaborate their green start-up ideas, such as in the topic of rooftop gardening, ecotourism, phone applications, growing acorn or organic apples and many more.

On the second day, we started the morning with Lenka's session who described us different personal characteristics in work field and could show us how to combine them in order to have a good team. In the afternoon, our second guest, Petr K. held a workshop about design thinking which focused on how to discover the real needs of our future customers.

The third day passed very fast. We explored the lean canvas by the hand of Lukas P. Participants could clarify and materialise many points of their green start-up idea thanks to the lean canvas chart. They also analysed the main risks of their future business.

On the following day, the group could leave the cosy activity room for a while and have a study trip to Kokoza Community Garden. Besides knowing more about the successful start-up, the participants helped to beautify the place by doing some gardening as well. After coming back to Toulcuv Dvur, Pavel K. made a very inspiriting presentation about his experience as an entrepreneur and on how to have sustainable finances in a business.

Next day, after a refreshing free morning, we went for another study visit, this time to Bezobalu, a shop that sells food without packaging. The co-founder, Petr shared the story of this great initiative and kindly answered to all of our questions. We ended the day with a delicious vegetarian dinner in the heart of Prague.

On the sixth day, we learned about legal issues thanks to Girts. Afterwards, we collected together many European and national fundraising opportunities for young entrepreneurs. In the afternoon, the open space give us possibility to offer a workshop or discussion and learn from each other.
The last full day was dedicated to planning the follow-up, evaluation and closing our diverse and intense week. Overall, YEE was delighted to be the organiser of a training course that offers a lot of competences, skills and inspiration to young green entrepreneurs to create their successful and environmental friendly businesses. You can read more about the training here.