Social Entrepreneurs: Have Your Say! An Interactive Event on social entrepreneurship in Europe

 Registration

Please use the registration form to apply.

Attendance to the event is free for all, but registered participants are expected to cover their own travel and accommodation costs. See below for more information.

Programme

Overview:

• Draft Programme(2 MB)  
• Description and moderators/speakers(273 KB)  

Thursday 16 January afternoon – Information: Workshops

Workshops of information and debate will be organized by the services of the Commission and the EESC. The themes will be divided into four main groups, after both the GECES experts and the expected participants in the conference have had the possibility to indicate their preferences regarding the themes via the online registration tool.

1. Microfinance and social entrepreneur’s stakeholder forum on green economy
2. Improving the access to funding
3. Increasing the visibility of social economy
4. Improving the regulatory framework

• Description and moderators/speakers(273 KB)  
• Room allocation, possible number of participants allowed in each room, languages and webstreaming(116 KB)  

Thursday 16 January afternoon – Conversation: OpenSpaces

If you have a theme / question / topic which is important to you but is not covered among the themes of the workshops, you can organise a special mini-workshop in OpenSpace (Want to know more about OpenSpace? Click here). In this case, you need only to bring your theme and interest with you; once here, you will be facilitated in posting your theme to invite other participants to join your conversation. (If you do not have a theme yet, you are welcome to participate in OpenSpace by joining the conversations posted that are of interest to you, as well as by coming up with a theme on-site).

Harvesting: presentation of the process(119 KB)  

Friday 17 January afternoon – Coaching sessions

To foster connections between social entrepreneurs around resolution of concrete projects (“Hold-ups” by CommonsSense). More info soon.

Friday 17 January afternoon – Field visits

Field visits of local social enterprises in Alsace and Baden-Württemberg. More info soon.

Practicalities

Venue

Strasbourg Convention Centre (“Palais des Congrès”), close to the European Parliament. More information.

The Strasbourg Convention Centre on Google Maps.

Transport to Strasbourg

• Information of the Convention Centre
• Information of the Tourist office
• Strasbourg international airport has a direct train link to Strasbourg central Station (9-minute journey); See the timetable
• From Basel-Mulhouse Euroairport, a shuttle (timetable ) takes you to the train station (timetable – trains every 30 minutes).
• There are Air and Rail Services from Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport as well as Air and Bus services from Frankfurt Airport .

Attendance to the event is free for all, but registered participants are expected to cover their own travel costs.

Accomodation

Information from the tourism office

Attendance to the event is free for all, but registered participants are expected to cover their own travel costs.

Important: since the event will take place during a session of the European Parliament, the organizers are conscious that the demand of accommodation in Strasbourg will be important. That is why, at the end of your on-line application for registration, you will receive an email of confirmation which will redirect you towards a dedicated Web site from the Strasbourg Convention centre, which, at the request of the organizers, pre-reserved for the participants in the event hundreds of hotel rooms of all categories in Strasbourg for the nights of Wednesday 15^th, Thursday 16^th and Friday 17^th January.

Stands

Throughout the event, you will have the opportunity to visit information stands. Here is a list of these stands, and a map showing there position on the 1^st floor of the Convention centre.

• List of stands with numbers(18 KB)  
• Position of each stand/number on the map of the 1^st floor(478 KB)  

Interpretation and Web Streaming

All activities in the room Erasme (plenary + workshops 4 & 7 + night owl) will be interpreted in 6 languages: English EN – French FR – German DE – Italian IT and Spanish ES + international sign language (+ Greek passively).

Workshop 12 in the room Schweitzer will be interpreted in 4 languages: English EN – French FR – Italian IT and Spanish ES (+ German and Greek passively).

Live and post-event webstreaming will be available in a dedicated webpage (available soon).

Webstreaming will be available in 5 languages EN-FR-DE-ES-Sign language for Erasme, and in 4 languages EN-FR-ES-IT for Schweitzer:

• Velotype @ Erasme 16 January
• Velotype @ Erasme 17 January

During the workshops in other rooms, consecutive interpretation will be available, if necessary, in FR or in ES; please refer to the table(116 KB)  .

Contacts

markt-social-business＠ec.europa.eu

4 Local Pre-Events in the EU

In the run up to Strasbourg 2014 CommonsSense, in partnership with the Commission, will be running four pilot “Have Your Say!” events in four cities across the EU – Athens, Budapest, Lisbon and Vilnius. These events aim to start the discussions, gaining the opinions and ideas of the young people and the social entrepreneurs on the ground. They also aim to help support and develop the ecosystem of social enterprise in these cities. They will use participative, creative methodologies to bring people together to work on solutions to barriers to social enterprise. For details please contact leila＠commonssense.cc.

Side Events

City of Strasbourg

More information soon

Euclid: Together to find solutions to local social problems!

Find ideas together with social entrepreneurs innovators from all over Europe. Join-us at Euclid’ Network’s next event on the 15th January 2014 in Strasbourg. More information here. Stay tuned!

Once Fundación

1^st European Award for Social Entrepreneurship and Disability (SE+D)(73 KB)  

Useful Links

• The Social Business initiative (SBI) website
• The Social Business Initiative brochure  
• The dedicated page of the Economic and Social Committee
• Winners of the 1^st European Social Innovation Prize and Launch of the 2^nd Competition – Milan, 11.10.2013
• Social Europe guide 2013 ”Social economy and social entrepreneurship“ (free)
• Youth in action programme and Publication: ”Young people and entrepreneurship: European good practice projects“ (free)