Here are some of my experiences entering as a participant in the Erasmus For Young Entrepreneurs (EYE) program, from the point of view of ‘young entrepreneur’. I’ll try to include some – hopefully useful – tips throughout, to be applied at your own risk.
If there’s one thing an unusual-ish university trajectory, an unforgettable Erasmus experience in Spain, being employed+unemployed+student+self-employed all at the same time (only in Belgium!), and living in banks-require-proof-of-everything London has thought me, it’s that all good things in life come with a pile of mind-numbing forms to fill.
EYE is no different (even though most of it happens online).
I am living the rewards now of course – of which both the blue sky below which I’m typing this and the great experiences in the web dev and entrepreneur/startup sphere I am now having here are proof – but yes it took some preparation. Luckily things were often eased by some great people I met on the way (more on that later). Reason enough to give you:
TIP 1: always look for people that can make your life easier, and TALK TO THEM. People are nice. (don’t forget to pay it forward by always trying to help others out of course).
What is Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs (EYE)?
EYE is a program from the European Commission that aims to bring together young or aspiring entrepreneurs with more experienced ones across Europe, so that they may benefit/learn from each other: both in terms of ideas, new approaches in their relevant field, and of course (for some reason it makes me cringe a bit writing this), improve understanding of another language/culture.
While I’m sure there exists some centralized commission somewhere in Brussels that is dedicated to EYE (and its web site), the program is mainly organized around ‘intermediary organizations‘, IOs in short. IOs are local entrepreneur-related organizations that agreed to add ‘managing local EYE participants’ to their activities.
All concrete steps, from applying for the program, to receiving funds, writing/evaluating the course of your stay… happen trough an IO of choice in your own country, both on the ‘young entrepreneur’ (YE) and ‘host entrepreneur’ (HE) side. Once accepted in the program, and have chosen (and are accepted) by a Host Entrepreneur, it’s *their* IO that also manages things from the foreign side.
Step 1: applying for the program
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Let me say right of the bat that the whole online site / platform / … where everything happens, leaves something to be desired. (I’m being polite here). In any case, the steps are to go
- middle name is ‘sounds good let’s do it’? Used to the fact that all good things in life come with a pile of boring paperwork? Erasmus for young entrepreneurs.
- be personal with your IO and that of your country of residence to keep things moving. If you have a company in mind not in the system: explain them! (as I did)
- web site ‘entrepreneur database’ is crap but I got a script to scrape it to local mysql db for better searching/navigating
- going to explore made lots of difference! Met CS hosts, future boss, impression of how vivid the place is, and how well I know the language to get around. Travelling all alone is nice early taste of living all alone…
[AUTHOR's NOTE: I stopped writing here, but as I'm trying to clean and re-organize this blog a bit, and going through the drafts, I thought I'd publish this anyway as is. Step 1 should get you half way there anyway]