Irish Rural Link (IRL) took part in the recent kick-off meeting of MICRO 2 – Enhancing Digital Entrepreneurship of Micro Enterprises in Rural Areas in a Post Pandemic World, a new Erasmus Plus project under the KA220 – VET- Cooperation Partnerships in Vocational Education and Training.
MICRO 2 aims to enhance the capacity of rural micro-enterprises to tackle digital and business transformation accelerated by the pandemic by developing tailored training resources.
Small rural businesses will be able to avail of training and have free access to online resources to help them have a greater online presence.
“This will improve the business potential of rural micro-enterprises to play a societal and economical role in their local area,” said Brendan Mulry, project officer.
“Micro-enterprises already face inherent barriers for technology and digital adaptation due to their size and capacity.
“Those in rural areas face even more challenges due to geographical isolation from clusters and distance from opportunities such as networking, collaborations and training.
“The digital gap is 14% lower for rural micro-enterprises at 48%. Micro-enterprises are a key employer in rural areas and by supporting them to improve their digitalisation, it will help them to grow and create more employment,” Brendan said.
“Partners will carry out a series of well defined activities that will lead to the production of tangible and operational results,” he said.
They will develop a resilient digital model for micro-enterprises in rural areas. They will also map existing government policies, agencies, and case studies in each partnering country and at EU level.
Development of a multi-language training programme – English, Italian and Spanish – will take place.
There will also be a build and maintenance of the Micro 2 Digital Warehouse Platform – open, multi language and flexible digital platform.
Digital entrepreneurship
The digital entrepreneurship meeting took place in Brussels, hosted by the Belgian Partner, IHF.
The partners have all worked together on previous projects so were able to get straight in to analysing the details of the project plan and define roles and responsibilities to implement project objectives, Brendan said.
The partners also discussed and agreed the visual identity of the project by choosing the logo and the website domain that will be online soon.
An action list was defined at the end of the meeting so that all that partners are on the same page in terms of activities, responsibilities and deadlines.
MICRO 2 Digital
MICRO 2 Digital is co-funded by the Erasmus Plus Programme of the European Commission with a duration of 18 months between November 2022 to April 2024. The project will be implemented by a partnership of four organisations from four European countries, Ireland, Belgium, Italy and Spain.
IRL, Brendan said, is proud to serve as lead partner in the project. It will also lead the digital training course to be developed in the project.
Planned modules in this training programme include: Cyber security, digital marketing, tele-working management in virtual settings, digital communication and Interaction.
On completion, the programme will be translated into Italian and Spanish and delivered on a pilot blended learning basis in each of the four partner countries.