During this journey, the 12 EMEN partners and the more than 150 organisations that have joined our three community of practices[2] have engaged in a deep peer-to-peer exchange with the final goal of redefining existing support schemes for migrant entrepreneurship in Europe for a more ‘Inclusive Ecosystem: towards a comprehensive support scheme for migrant entrepreneurs in Europe[3]’.

In short, during the period 2017-2020 EMEN’s activities included:

• A final conference with more than 300 participants[4]
• Three international events with more than 60 participants per encounter[5]
• Four thematic webinars[6]
• Two surveys and related need analysis with Migrant Business Support Organisations (MBSO)[7] and chambers of commerce around Europe[8]
• 15 training sessions with MBSO and refugee entrepreneurs for a total of 425 beneficiaries[9]
• Implementation of a diversity tool assessment with 15 chambers of commerce[10]
• Participation in a large number of international conferences and external workshops[11]
• Collection of 23 good practices on supporting migrant entrepreneurs carried out by all EMEN partners as well as via public consultation through the Migrants for Migrants (M4M) call for programmes launched in July 2020[12]
• Production of several materials for better migrant entrepreneurship support, papers, discussions notes, articles and reports[13]

All these numerous encounters have taught us that further efforts to consolidate a wider and more inclusive European ecosystem for migrant entrepreneurship able to address the various transversal challenges the sector face is needed. Such an ecosystem needs to make sure to:

• Strengthen the bonds among local entrepreneurs and local BSO with migrants’ groups, migrant-led organisations and migrant entrepreneurs to

• • understand that the business cycles of ethnic groups have more steps and face more barriers
  • generate networking opportunities

• Reach out to the existing diaspora groups, which are key connectors for newcomers but who lack sufficient visibility.
• Facilitate a closer collaboration among all socio-economic key actors.
• Combine training, mentoring and coaching with well-structured interventions addressing social, cultural, educational and professional aspects of integration.
• Ensure ICT literacy of both migrant entrepreneurs and migrants associations during the training processes to overcome the digital gap, particularly important in terms of COVID19.
• Involve personnel with migrant backgrounds to allow highly personalised services in terms of cultural understanding.
• To exchange about the broad range of formal financial intermediaries existing, but also and most importantly in the time of recession, new ones emerging, to become familiar with the new financial landscape, which is changing dramatically with the emergence of internet-based channels and financing mechanisms that have been set up for and by migrants.
• To set and constantly revised European quality standards for migrant entrepreneurship support schemes against the current trends, digitalisation and the ‘Green deal’.

While migrant entrepreneurs have proved to be resilient individuals that bring new market opportunities to their new locations, they are often the most hit by economic downturns. In the context of the current pandemic crisis, they experience higher revenues losses and their distribution networks and supply chains were more affected[14]. New opportunities such as the EU Green Deal will be at the core of the EU’s recovery strategy post COVID19 and we need to ensure this also benefits the most vulnerable of our societies and do not wide the already existing gap.

What’s next?

After three exciting years, EMEN project is coming to an end, but its 12 partners and the wide EMEN community will continue working for more inclusive growth in Europe. We feel is too soon to say goodbye to this enriching opportunity and therefore, our website and social media channels will remain open to make sure everybody can access and use the resources we have developed as well as continue reaching out for future collaborations.

Thanks for joining us in this adventure!

Patricia Martínez Sáez (AEIDL) on behalf of the EMEN consortium.

[1] See for instance OECD/European Union (2019), The Missing Entrepreneurs 2019: Policies for Inclusive Entrepreneurship, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/3ed84801-en

[2] The three Communities of Practice (CoPs) of the project are: (1) Coaching and mentoring (led by Social Impact gGmbH, Berlin); (2) Access to Finance (led by THUAS-FN, The Hague); (3) Professionalisation of migrant entrepreneurs’ associations and diversity management in chambers of commerce (led by UNITEE, Brussels).

[3] See the https://www.emen-project.eu/download-the-emen-final-publication/ to read our main findings and conclusions

[4] See the official website of the final conference https://www.growing-europe.eu/

[5] The first  annual event in Munich organised by CoP1 1st EMEN Annual Conference – Munich, April 2018. The second annual event in The Hague organised by CoP2 Annual event in The Hague – Conference Report. And the third annual event in online format organised by CoP3 3rd EMEN Annual event. CoP3 Diversity management (online). Conference report

[6] See https://www.emen-project.eu/the-emen-webinar-series-what-a-journey/

[7] See the Survey report on mainstream business associations

[8] See Survey report on professionalization needs of migrant entrepreneurs’ associations

[9] See Final training materials in professionalization and diversity management

[10] Idem 6.

[11] See for instance EMEN participation at the M-UP and MAGNET events such as https://www.emen-project.eu/emen-at-the-m-up-and-magnet-conference-in-barcelona/  or https://emen-up.eu/event/webinar-migrant-entrepreneurship-access-to-finance/ , but also other EU projects such as https://www.emen-project.eu/emen-at-democracy-alive/, https://www.emen-project.eu/the-emen-project-goes-to-luci-sul-lavoro-images-music-and-words-that-tell-the-story-of-work/, https://www.emen-project.eu/emen-at-agorada-2019/

[12] https://www.emen-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/M4M-A4_links-.pdf

[13] See the https://www.emen-project.eu/library/

[14] David Halabisky, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) during the EMEN webinar ‘The essence of migrant entrepreneurship and business associations’ https://www.emen-project.eu/the-essence-of-migrant-entrepreneurship-and-business-associations-the-third-webinar-of-the-unlockingdiversity-series/

The EMEN final publication

Click HERE to download it!

In recent years, interest in support for migrant entrepreneurship in Europe has grown. While some obstacles to the development of enterprises are shared by those experienced by non-migrants, many are specifically faced by migrant entrepreneurs, hindering growth. These challenges are of particular interest for the EMEN project, which aims to create a supportive ecosystem to reduce the obstacles to the fair and sustainable development of migrant enterprises.

As a result of the 3-year learning process derived from all the peer-to-peer exchanges with the EMEN and the three Communities of Practices (CoP) members, the project has produced a final publication Inclusive Ecosystems: towards a comprehensive support scheme for migrant entrepreneurs in Europe.

In this report, we explain why the different components of a supportive ecosystem are needed and how they can be improved, as well as provide a selection of good examples currently supporting migrant entrepreneurs. In addition, we explain the learning approach followed by EMEN, the CoP and the techniques for ensuring its success, in order to encourage peer-to-peer exchanges among key actors sharing the same concern, interest or goal.

We hope that our experiences and recommendations allow others to rethink their services and approaches to migrant entrepreneurship and to keep developing more inclusive support in increasingly diverse societies.

Click HERE to download it!

Migrant entrepreneurs are crucial for the future of an aging Europe. Helping them succeed and grow is an important issue but also a challenge. Migrant entrepreneurs often operate in niche markets and do not have access to the local support networks.  The existing supportive networks do not have enough cultural sensibility, structures and intercultural competences to adapt their services to their needs.

With the objective of closing those gaps, the leader of the EMEN Community of Practice (CoP) 3 UNITEE – the New European Business Confederation, carried out a series of training sessions and tool assessment, in cooperation with EUROCHAMBRES.

This report presents the final training materials tested and readjusted following a human-centre approach that takes into account the direct feedback of the migrant and refugee entrepreneurs who participated in the different trainings, workshops and conferences organised by UNITEE. The course, titled “Achieving future-proof migrant business member organisations” has been tested in a total of 15 learning opportunities carried out by UNITEE during the period 2018 and 2020. A total of 425 participants benefited from such learning experiences. The final presentations can be found in the annexes of the report and are open to anybody on replicating them in similar environments.

The second part of this document presents the results of CoP3 in assessing how to raise awareness and strength diversity management in the chambers of commerce. CoP3 the leaders decided that the option that better fit the members’ needs was the assessment of their competences and further recommendations based on the given results obtained through the application of the InclusiveEntrepreneurship tool. This tool is continuously improved and actualized by the European Commission and OECD.

A total of 15 Chambers of Commerce (2 from Romania, 1 from Spain, 1 from Cyprus, 1 from Germany, 2 from Sweden, 7 from Italy, 1 from Turkey) answered and sent the inputs generated by the tool to EUROCHAMBERS and UNITEE. The second part of this report summaries such result and propose a set of recommendations in the spirit of mainstreaming diversity management.

To download:

The final version of the two main outcomes developed by the leader of the Community of Practice (CoP) 3 UNITEE – the New European Business Confederation as part of the EMEN (European Migrant Entrepreneurship Network) project, financed in the framework of the COSME programme and in cooperation with EUROCHAMBRES.

D2.23 Final training materials in professionalization & diversity management

• Zidi Circle by Fridah Ntarangwi
• FinallyVC by Yama Saraj
• #GoingFar by Talita Holzer

#GoingFar at a glance!

City where it is implemented

Dublin, Ireland

Starting date

2018

In which field does it support ME

Mentoring, training, networking

Summary

#GoingFar is a non-profit organisation created with the specific goal to support migrant professionals in Ireland to achieve their career goals, with a focus on women and non-binary people. The organisation’s mission is to accelerate the development of diverse migrant professionals, by giving them the tools to learn new skills, find employment and/or set up their own businesses.

The small, 100% voluntary team is composed of six migrant women, who are dedicated to offering value to the migrant community in Ireland through:

• Workshops to help individuals to get their dream job, set up their own business or simply up-skill
• Talks/Panel Discussions with amazing, diverse, experienced professionals in tech, entrepreneurship, and others, who can share insights on their success
• A 1-1 mentoring programme with experienced mentors, for free
• Free tickets to conferences organised by partners such as SaaStock, Future Human and 3XE Digital.
• Connections to the right people and companies, depending on the person’s needs

#GoingFar started as part of Start-up Week Dublin 2018, as an initiative to address a key problem – while there were several community events to address gender inequality in the workplace, there were very few initiatives to support the migrant professional community in Ireland. A speed-mentoring event was organised with more than 20 mentors and 35 migrant professionals. What was supposed to be a once-off event, became a long-term initiative, thanks to the highly positive and energised feedback from the participants.

Why is it a good practice?

100% migrant led-organisation providing comprehensive and individual training and mentoring plus access to a strategic alliance.  Today, #GoingFar has impacted over 200 migrant professionals in Ireland by providing 1-1 mentoring, workshops, access to conferences, and more. The team has created key strategic partnerships to support its expansion in the country, including well-known companies like Microsoft, Salesforce and DocuSign. These connections allow the migrant community to tap into the vast expertise present in these companies, while also encouraging accomplished Irish and migrant professionals to give back to this community.

#GoingFar more in-depth:#GoingFar stands for diverse migrant professionals in Ireland

#Goingfar CEO and founder Talita Holzer are passionate about solving problems that have a meaningful impact on people’s lives. With the objective of accelerating the labour market integration of migrant women and non-binary people in Ireland, Talita launched the #Goingfar initiative. What was supposed to be a once-off event in 2018, became a long-term initiative that has supported more than 200 people in this country.

For most people, it is a big challenge to climb the corporate ladder or start a new business. Doing that in a different country, without a support network, not knowing the language, and with no knowledge of the workplace culture can be overwhelming.

On top of that, it is very common for qualified migrants to take a career break when moving to a new country – to learn the language or get acquainted with the new culture – making it difficult for them to return to their areas of expertise.

#GoingFar started as part of Start-up Week Dublin 2018, as an initiative to address a key problem – while there were several community events to address gender inequality in the workplace, there were very few initiatives to support the migrant professional community in Ireland. A speed-mentoring event was organised with more than 20 mentors and 35 migrant professionals. What was supposed to be an ad hoc event, became a long-term initiative, thanks to the highly positive and energised feedback from the participants.

Today, #GoingFar has impacted over 200 migrant professionals in Ireland by providing 1-1 mentoring, workshops, access to conferences, and more. The team has created key strategic partnerships to support its expansion in the country, including well-known companies like Microsoft, Salesforce and DocuSign. These connections allow the migrant community to tap into the vast expertise present in these companies, while also encouraging accomplished Irish and migrant professionals to give back to this community.

Talita tells us that her main challenge was to try to scale #GoingFar by herself for the first year, and although she was able to organise meaningful workshops and talks, it was quite difficult to bring her vision to reality on her own. She decided then to try and find people with a similar passion who could help her and initially brought in someone to manage partnerships and another person to work on branding and digital marketing. Since then, more people have asked to join their initiative and help out in other ways, and it has been growing organically at a good pace.

The vision they have in mind for #GoingFar is nowhere near done. The team intends to offer more well-structured training to the migrant community to support them in not only finding employment but thriving in it. They also plan to start working directly with companies to educate them about common issues migrant professionals face in Ireland and how to address them – including removing biases from their recruitment processes and creating more diverse teams. Although these goals are quite ambitious, their team has a good feeling they have the right skills, dedication and strategic alliance to accomplish the intended roadmap in a near future.

• Zidi Circle by Fridah Ntarangwi
• FinallyVC by Yama Saraj
• #GoingFar by Talita Holzer

Finally VC at a glance!

Countries where it is implemented

Western Europe

Starting date

2020

In which field does it support ME

Access to finance

Summary

Finally VC is an initiative aiming at offering venture capital to “underestimated” founders developing tech-enabled impact start-ups, reinventing the future of health, work and sustainability in a post-pandemic world. It was created by some of Included.VC fellows. After one-year of VC training, seven fellows from the cohort decided to apply to the Silicon Valley-based Founders institute VC labs, being accepted to its accelerator program.

Now Finally VC is launching a €5 million pre-seed fund for West European ventures, funding diverse founders that empirically perform better. They aim to achieve outlier returns by backing outlier founders who are underrepresented, undercapitalized, and targeting underserved markets. They secure deal flow using their backgrounds as founders with diversity in race, gender, sexuality, nationality, socioeconomic background, and immigrant-refugee experience.

Why is it a good practice?

Finally VC brings diversity into the VC industry, a sector highly difficult to reach for minority, vulnerable or underrepresented groups. The funding also aims at addressing societal problems that diverse entrepreneurs are better positioned to identify and tackle in comparison with more conventional backgrounds.

Finally VC more in-depth: access to finance for “underestimated” founders. Solving complex socio-economic issues Europe is facing in the aftermath of changing demographics and Covid-19 pandemics.

After a life-changing experience of a year VC fellowship with Included VC, Yama Saraj had not only learned about the VC industry and its dynamics but had also deepened his understanding of entrepreneurship itself.

He states that before this fellowship, Venture Capital seemed so unreachable to him that it almost had mythical status. Being from an underrepresented community, to make it as a start-up founder is tough, not only you lack the social capital, also everyone doubts your credibility disproportionally. Getting access to resources and funding can be even harder. Nevertheless, Yama wanted to break through with his start-up to bring dignity and honour to his war-torn Afghan community.

Yama and his colleagues decided to launch a VC fund called, Finally VC.  The reason is that venture capital is shockingly uneven distributed:

• Of all the founders that raised funding in 2019 in Europe, 0.5% identified as Black, 1.4% Middle Eastern & 4.1% as Asian.
• In 2018, less than 1% of VC funding raised by European start-ups went to all female-founded companies.

“The honest truth is, I never wanted to be in Venture Capital or even become an entrepreneur.  I wanted to devote my life to poverty elevation in developing countries and improve socio-economic position of migrants and refugees like myself. The shame and humiliation of being a refugee, losing your social standing, dignity, and honour always drive me to think of how can we get ourselves out of this situation. 

 As an economist, I am very interested in migration & development topics as we experienced this ourselves. In the 42 years of war, Afghanistan had produced 10 million refugees and most likely suffered a huge brain drain. For example, my mother was a professor in veterinary and my dad was an engineer.

 We found a safe refuge in the Netherlands in 1998, when I was just 12. For which we are very grateful.  Yet I would grow up questioning my place in this new society, my identity and belonging.  Because of this, in 2010 I went back to Afghanistan (driving 8000 km along the former silk road) to look for my roots, identity, and understanding the root cause of why we became refugees in the first place.  I realised the big contrast of the worlds I am in between. On one hand, I see the extreme poverty and underdevelopment of my father’s village Taghai Khowja, Saripol province in the North of Afghanistan, and on the other hand, I am in this rich and technologically sophisticated city, Eindhoven, where I grew up and that I call home now.  

Working briefly in Kosovo, DR Congo and Afghanistan with development assistance, I realised the importance of private sector development and the higher educated diaspora’s as a catalyst for positive change through entrepreneurship.  Beyond advocacy link, lecturing and consulting, I always felt I should do something concrete myself, lead with example. 

Passionate about boxing, I wanted to leverage on the bonding and healing power of sports and emerging technologies to make a positive impact, not only in my country of origin but also here in Europe. We also have much inequality and social issues with migrants. As Nelson Mandela stated “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. 

That is why I started this start-up called SensAi teaser, a personalised data-driven boxing with a coaching solution. The concept is to recycling car tires and make a punching bag out of them with the aim to make boxing safe and fun and through it, to help people develop their mental and physical resilience (see pitch deck and a Prototype). In Eindhoven, I couldn’t find support for such initiative, the networks in Eindhoven are very much tight-knit, they even have a saying about this philosophy “ons kent ons”, meaning us to know us. Not the most inclusive and diverse place to do a start-up, I can tell. 

I got by some chance in Paris for a conference on tech-4-good and run into the former Greece Prime Minister George Papandreou’s about people like myself and investing in refugees (see the link).  

Station F is the French flagship start-up campus, set up by the tech billionaire Xavier Niel. They have a strong focus on diversity and inclusivity. For example, the directress, Roxanne Varza is French-American with roots from Iran.  When they heard about my story, I got immediately invited at Station F for one-year support for my start-up. It has been a great experience so far and many doors opened up for me, which would have never been possible in Eindhoven. 

 Through this process, I realised also how hard it is for people of colour, women, and underrepresented communities to get access to resources.  Running a start-up is not easy, not for anyone, most probably 90% of start-ups will fail within the first year. Yet people of colour/women and people with a refugee background have many more challenges.  First of all, society has such low expectation patterns of you and has the urge to pro-actively project this. Many succumb to this pressure, settle down with less ambitious things, and will never fully develop their potential.  People disproportionately doubt your credibility. Also, there is a lack of role models, people you can identify with to gain confidence. 

That’s why I think there is a need for initiatives to help the tech innovation ecosystem more inclusive and receptive to newcomers. 

I went through 1 year Included.VC fellowship and learn very much about the VC industry and about “cognitive bias” and other diversity issues.

With 6 other fellows, we are now on a mission to set up our own VC fund www.finally.vc.  We have been accepted in the Silicon Valley-based Founders institute accelerator program for VC’s.

We are now in the process of narrating our stories, developing our team, writing our investment thesis and mobilising their networks and chasing limited partners who believe in our cause.  We believe we have a strong diverse team, extremely motivated and plugged into some of the most dynamics ecosystem such as STATION F, University of Oxford, SLUSH or #SHE_BUILDS. We can source deals from underrepresented communities that are overlooked and underestimated.

Our strategy is to source the best deals from underestimated underrepresented founders. Invest small ticket sizes and trigger herding behaviour with another VC’s to co-invest. Aside from giving access to funding, we aim to have a strong added value and mobilise a strong support network to make our portfolio succeed.”

• Zidi Circle by Fridah Ntarangwi
• FinallyVC by Yama Saraj
• #GoingFar by Talita Holzer

ZidiCircle at a glance!

City and country where it is implemented

The Hague, Netherlands

Starting date

2017

Organisations involved

Zidicircle in partnership with IOM

In which field does it support ME

Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Access to finance

Summary

Zidicircle focuses on supporting diaspora/migrants impact start-ups to scale across Europe & abroad through access to funding combined with workshops, training and coaching that enable entrepreneurs improve their business models, improve operational efficiency and be investment ready for the right impact investors on their platform.

Their diverse entrepreneurs find themselves in between trying to start a business or even raise capital. When an entrepreneur leaves the country of origin, he/she leaves the networks and banking history behind. To start a new business in a different country, the entrepreneur needs to try to fit in a new pre-existing network and build credibility to raise funds. When it comes to diaspora/migrant entrepreneurs, additional barriers such as prejudices also arise. With the objective of not losing

young, ambitious and innovative entrepreneurs who might feel frustrated by all those barriers to start a business, Zidicircle CEO Fridah Ntarangwi launched the diaspora entrepreneurship bootcamp in 2019 in partnership with IOM Netherlands. It involved 40 migrant entrepreneurs from Ghana and Ethiopia. This initiative enabled the start-ups to actualize their business ideas and develop all components of their business models while the scale-ups worked towards getting ready for investments.  The bootcamp was concluded in a pitching competition followed by a 6 months coaching programme by mentors after which we invited various financing partners to explain their products in a 6-week access to finance webinar series.  Building on this success and impact, Zidi will run the Bootcamp yearly starting with the second programme coming up in the Fall of 2020.

Why it is a good practice?

Ethnics minorities are hugely underrepresented in both founder circles and investors, lacking role models for inspirations, access to entrepreneurial ecosystems and being categorised as a risk group. Zidicircle focuses on diaspora and funding programs fronted by diaspora themselves to tackle those barriers down and bring the diaspora entrepreneurs closing to the Dutch and EU entrepreneurial ecosystems.  Besides training and access to a platform with resources and connections, Zidicircle connects diaspora entrepreneurs to affordable finance from global impact investors.

ZidiCircle more in-dept: supporting Diverse entrepreneurs to growth in The Netherlands!

When the founder of Zidicricle Fridah Ntarangwi migrated to the Netherlands in 2014 to do her masters in Finance, she thought that being highly educated and with the right work experience in business and finance would make it easy for her to become an entrepreneur, with statistics showing the Netherlands as one of the best countries to start a business.

The truth is that when she decided to start her business after some work experience in her new home country, she realised she lacked an entrepreneurial support ecosystem.

Apart from her business coach, she was unable to reach out to other role models, or peers to talk to. She tried joining local business incubators but she always felt out of place. “I remember one time I pitched my idea in one of the incubators in Amsterdam, to my surprise, no one crapped, no one asked me a question, no one talked to me during networking. I felt misunderstood and out place”. Says Fridah.

Fundraising was a very upward task with similar challenges. That’s how she decided to create a platform where diaspora & diverse entrepreneurs would find all the resources, incubation, coaching and funding that they need to run their businesses.  In partnership with IOM-UN Migration, Zidicircle launched the diaspora entrepreneurship bootcamp in 2019. It involved 40 migrant entrepreneurs from Ghana and Ethiopia. This initiative enabled the start-ups to actualize their business ideas and develop all components of their business models while the scale-ups worked towards getting ready for investments.  The bootcamp was concluded in a pitching competition followed by a 6 months coaching programme by mentors after which various financing partners were invited to explain their products in 6-week access to finance webinar series.  Building on this success and impact, Zidi will run the Bootcamp yearly starting with the second programme coming up in the Fall of 2020.

When Fridah arrived in the Netherlands, she saw several cultural and structural differences when it comes to starting a business. In Kenya almost everyone ventures into a business. So once can imagine this brings a very vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem. In the Netherlands, there are a lot of formal start-ups ecosystems and government support for entrepreneurs in general. The ease of doing business here is very seamless holistically. But when you arrive as a migrant entrepreneur, some things change and it takes longer than usual to navigate the support ecosystem. Some of the challenges they experience include language barrier, lack of knowledge of opportunities, limited social & professional networks, a cult of “warm introductions, being categorised too risky by funders, struggle with fitting in among others, etc. Fridah says organisations and policymakers need to think about these issues basically. “There is a lot of campaigns and initiatives towards having inclusive working environments. But no one is talking about inclusive entrepreneurship. If you brought with you an entrepreneurial spirit in a new country, it is a shame if this spirit dies at the mercy of lack of an enabling environment for you”.

The thorny issue of funding still remains. Zidi research shows that up to 89% migrant entrepreneurs lack funding to launch their businesses in the EU or in their countries of origin. “The majority of them work for years to save and then start a business, which generates a lot of lost opportunities. It is a hard place as an entrepreneur to be in between your host and country of origin. We are filling this gap but centralizing all the resources that these entrepreneurs need”.  

Fridah was born and raised in a small village at the slopes of Mt. Kenya. She studied and worked in various finance and business roles in Kenya before migrating to the Netherlands in 2014 to Further her studies in finance. She worked for a while before venturing in entrepreneurship.

As a start-up ecosystem builder, she has supported over 100 international start-ups and scale-ups through training and fundraising. Over the past 15 years, she has accumulated business & financial experience ranging from entrepreneurship, SME financing, international trade, impact investments, crowdfunding, agro-financing, financial advisory, supply chain finance, corporate finance, entrepreneurship and financial markets regulations in Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).  She is passionate about emerging markets and being part of a transformative agenda for over 1 Billion people through entrepreneurship and financing. She has also obtained the Duisenberg title ‘Woman in Finance’ that was awarded in conjunction with QS Quacquarelli Symonds in the UK to recognizes high potential women that can influence the financial landscape.

Her initiative has been listed as one of the winners for the migrant for migrant call by the EMEN project of the European Union.

Could you present UNITEE’s activities? What is your role in it?

My name is Adem Kumcu, I am the President of UNITEE, the New European Business Confederation, based in Brussels, Belgium. Originally, we wanted migrant and refugee entrepreneurs to get much better services, not only from migrant business associations but also from the entrepreneurial support ecosystem in the region they are active in. But unfortunately, the reality is that there is a mentality of “islands” and not an ecosystem where different actors serve this specific group of entrepreneurs to cooperate in a coordinated way. When developing the project, we tried with AEIDL to develop a holistic approach to support much better migrant and refugee entrepreneurs through Europe to tackle that issue.

What is UNITEE’s role in the EMEN project?

In the original idea of the project, we had three main topics supporting migrant and refugee entrepreneurship. In the EMEN project, UNITEE is responsible for the “Community of Practices 3” (CoP3), which is about professionalisation of migrant entrepreneurs’ associations and diversity management of mainstream business associations.

On the one side, we have the migrant business associations that we want to professionalise and to future proof with the digitalisation of services. Why? Because the digital revolution is already happening. Most of the time, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are not able to digitalise their business in general. Migrants and refugees are doing the digitalisation transition even later than other SMEs. The question is then how to overcome the digitalisation gap. The second ambition in the professionalisation of migrant business associations is to make them part of the existing supportive infrastructure. Not to marginalise the support of migrant entrepreneurs but to help migrant business associations to become part of the existing ecosystem to work in a synergetic cooperation with the local actors, among others.

On the other side, we have the chambers of commerce who need to develop a cultural sensitivity and diversity. It is not enough to professionalise migrant business associations. It is also important to help the other actors of the supportive ecosystem. The problem is that these other actors lack some cultural sensitivity in helping the migrant entrepreneurs. In CoP3 we have a strategic alliance with EUROCHAMBRES, to better understand the specific needs of migrant and refugee entrepreneurs and to adapt their services and supportive actions to have a bigger positive impact on their success.

How did you develop the training? What are the objectives of the training and coaching UNITEE is implementing? What tools are you using?

When developing the activity for EMEN CoP3, we started with two surveys. One was oriented towards a network of migrant business associations where we wanted to understand what their level of professionalism was and what difficulties they had in serving their members. The other survey was for cultural sensitivity and diversity management of chambers. Based on this, we decided to develop a training to professionalise these migrant business associations and to help chambers to develop their cultural sensitivity and to develop a diversity management system in their organisation.

Following this, we have two tracks: one is a training for migrant business associations and another one is the development of a tool for chambers. During our research, we found out an already excellent existing tool on the market, the “Better Entrepreneurship Tool” that EUROCHAMBRES is now communicating to their chambers.

Training for migrants entrepreneurs associations

How did you get in contact with migrant business associations?

Based on the analysis we did with EUROCHAMBRES for the Action plan of the project, I started to take contacts with migrant business associations to know which ones were interested in a training to professionalise and future proof their organisation. One of the first to react was a French organisation called FEDIF (French-Turkish Federation of Entrepreneurs). They exist for more than 10 years but they now want to become more part of the Parisian ecosystem. After being invited by FEDIF, 19 organisations came to a three day-meeting in Paris.

What was your precise role in the training?

My function was to help them to develop a strategic transition plan. We analysed the problematic they had, and then I helped them to put in order their ideas to professionalise their organisations. At the end of the training they had a Strategic Plan and an Action Plan on how to improve the professional management of their organisation and what they first need to change. Most of the 19 organisations decided to start by renewing their Board. Then, they drafted a survey for their members to understand the desirability of their services. Secondly, they tried to understand if it is feasible for them to give their members these services. They also needed to know if they could finance this, if it is economically viable. The last point is about the sustainability and for how long they can help their members in achieving a better performance.

EMEN project helped FEDIF to digitalise their services. Another impact of EMEN on FEDIF is to organise an online “war-room”, where the coordination of actions is organised, to help them and their members to be prepared to face the impact of the Covid-19 crisis. FEDIF looked in what sectors their members are the most active: in retail, restaurants, fast-food, construction, etc. My role is to help them organise the “war-room” and what to do to be prepared for the coronavirus crisis.

What’s next for FEDIF?

The next phase for FEDIF is to form an ecosystem with other actors and entrepreneurs in general like chambers of commerce, banks and coaching network. One of the main issues FEDIF is facing is the cost to serve their members. With digitalisation and online services, the costs are reduced compare to physical meetings.

In general, what was their expectation?

They had three concrete expectations: on the financial sustainability of their organisation, about the cooperation and a strategic alliance with the local actors and on the digitalisation of their organisation.

Regarding the diversity among participants?

Ethnic diversity was less than expected as FEDIF, being a Turkish-French network, was mainly present. We need to keep in mind migrants are operating through their close network in general. Moreover, women were less represented than men.

Did you develop a specific approach to coach them?

The approach came from a Strategic Plan: what is the mission of your organisation? What do you want to achieve in 3 years’ time in terms of transition? How to improve your organisation’s governance? On this point, we focused on transparency, accountability, and democracy. On how to improve their services, we first worked on the platform of the services, whether it should be physical or digital. And also, how to develop a member-oriented service. They used to have a top-down approach towards their members, so we suggested listening more to their members’ needs and expectations. The objective for the organisations is to become, in cooperation with other actors in the field, a coordinator. This is only possible in a digital and not physical way.

Training for Turkish refugees in Spain

How did you get in contact with Turkish refugees living in Spain?

An entrepreneur from Spain had a contact with FEDIF and he heard about UNITEE’s training activities with EMEN. He told me about the many Turkish refugees he is in contact with. I gave 6 trainings to 20 refugees, including 4 women. These people have difficulties to create a job for themselves because of a “paralysis”: they do not speak Spanish, they do not understand the institutions, they are not entrepreneurs in their country of origin so they do not know what to do, plus they have difficulties in finding a job in general. I want to help them by stimulating their “entrepreneurial spirit” and by organising an informal digital business club named “Business Academy”.

Can you present the objectives of the training?

The first objective for them is to understand how the Spanish economy works: what are the Spanish consumers’ needs, what are the most successful businesses, what can be exported. I wanted to put them in contact with migrant entrepreneurs, especially the members of UNITEE, to cooperate with to find a market in Europe and to export products across Europe. Moreover, to help them find migrant entrepreneurs who want to invest in a start-up in Spain.

What is their background?

They are highly educated people who were professionally active in Turkey but have difficulties in Spain in finding or launching a business. They have no business experience. Some are engineers (IT sector), teachers, lawyers… Most of them arrived 16 months ago with their families and are taking Spanish classes.

How can these refugees achieve creating their own business?

They need to be organised in sectors. One of the most booming sectors in Spain is organic food: try to find original products that may find their market in Europe. I wanted to activate them to think about a business idea. During the training, they organised themselves in small work groups of 4-5 people called “committees” focusing on online marketing or organic food, among others.

I coached them about the market research process and how to develop a tool for it, especially for entrepreneurs outside Spain and business ideas within Spain when you do not have the means to start a micro-enterprise. My goal was to motivate them and make them realise there is hope for them and their business.

I also asked them to get in touch with Spanish Chambers of Commerces, which they did. This allowed them to invite some representatives and to discuss with them on the Spanish economy and its opportunities.

Thanks to UNITEE’s network and contacts, I found 7 entrepreneurs from Europe, including Turkish people who live in Europe, who are all sellers either in the food sector or home furniture and interested in Spanish products. In that way, they will interact with real business people and try to find a common business idea. I will help them and coach them during the cooperation phase.

Being an entrepreneur yourself, what practical advice did you give them?

I advise them to organise their business as a “cooperative uberisation” so that clients and professionals can easily be in contact. This will help the social mobility of migrants and their integration in Europe. My advice was to get organised as a cooperative, to help each other, create social and economic added value for the Spanish market. If you want to succeed, you need to feel like a European and Spanish citizen. In order to feel successful in the country, you need to feel part of the country, you don’t have to forget your roots and country of origin. You need to understand how the country you live in works if you really want to become part of this new society and not to remain in the margin.

I also want to create a digital community with them so that they are not ghettoised. They need to invite Spanish people, other Europeans, etc. I push them to be active on a cooperative platform, through the perspective of UNITEE but also with CoP3 of the EMEN project. The coronavirus time has been a fantastic accelerator of this process. For example, it allows me to give trainings and seminars to France and Scandinavian countries in the same day. If we keep in mind its limits, digitalisation is a unique chance we have.

Did something in particular catch your attention with the participants?

Some are calling me to get some more information, some others are pessimistic, thinking they don’t have a chance. But others do not know they already have some valuable tools in their hands.  Lot of them are active on social media, so they already have a valuable skill they can use! Online marketing is nowadays necessary, they can make a really good use of it with their already existing skills.

Contact details: emen@emen-project.eu 

READ THE FULL PAPER HERE

While any migrant entrepreneurship support scheme is naturally bound to local conditions that strongly vary from region to region, the Community of Practice (CoP)1 of EMEN has analysed and compared a set of good practices on coaching and mentoring with the objective of identifying their unique selling points.

We did that by proposing a methodological framework of four essential categories and eventually also compare features of different support schemes for migrant entrepreneurs.

The strength of this paper lies in the description of outstanding features, such as incentives that seem to be important in comparison to other programmes.

Similarly, this paper provided an analysis of three different business support schemes across Europe, namely TERN (UK), Start-Up Refugee (Finland) and THSN (Germany).

The analysis focused on refugee entrepreneurship, which might not be so different from other ME Support schemes. Each of the cases bears obvious advantages, e.g. idiosyncratic innovations and practices each programme realises.

In a nutshell: Start-Up Refugees is coming from and building on the broader refugee community in Finland. Thus, start-up support is – besides acting as an employment agency – merely one component of their approach. TERN from London has the strongest business approach among the three cases. Consequently, the organisation runs a rather market-oriented incubation programme. Like SUR, they strongly build their community and create strong linkages with i.e. their alumni network, which clearly bears advantages. THSN’s case is surely outstanding in terms of its scope and scale. Due to the exchange between a strong sponsor and its embeddedness in the existing network of Social Impact Labs across Germany, THSN has significant leverage. Methodologically, also considering the focus of the broader THSN-programme, it seems not only to focus on supporting strong entrepreneurs but also on providing orientation and inspiration to clients that have a lower disposition to establish their business.

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