1st International Multiplier Event – Rome, Italy
OREN’s first International Multiplier Event (ME), organised by SYDIC, took place in Rome, Italy, on July 10th.
The meeting was held at the “Sala delle Bandiere”, at the European Parliament venue, in the center of Rome.
Fig.1: Andrea Brundo, Camillo Carlini, and Stefano Armenia, representing SYDIC, the organizing partner of Oren’s first Multiplier Event.
The Multiplier Event was dedicated to providing an overview of the OREN project, as well as of the developed activities and insights that had been achieved during the first year of the project. The partners also presented insights regarding the following topics:
- Structure and main functionalities of the OREN Project
- Courses and lectures
- Tools and skills that entrepreneurs will acquire throughout the courses
The attendees had the opportunity to witness the keynote speeches of two experts/policymakers working inside the rural context:
Dr. Rocco Ferraro: Councilor for Ecological Transition, Protected Areas and Animal Protection at the Environmental Department of Greater Rome
“Our future lies in our land.”
Dr. Carlo Hausmann: General Director of Agrocamera, the AgriFood section of the Chamber of Commerce in Rome
“In the modern rural economy, public administration bodies play a fundamental role to help overcome the various obstacles the industry is still facing. In Italy, Agriturismo is one of the most successful business models which has experienced tremendous growth within the past years, also thanks to digital networks.”
Fig. 2 and 3: Impressions during the speeches of Dr. Roco Ferraro and Dr. Carlo Hausmann about working insights in the rural industry
In addition to the guest speakers, our partners gave presentations about the data that has been collected in the form of desk research, analysis of case studies on successful businesses, and surveys of rural entrepreneurs. These in turn led to the identification of opportunities for growth, as well as of the challenges in the various sectors within Europe, with particular attention to the skills needed by the future (but also current) entrepreneurs.
Some of the major findings in rural areas were the increased risk of social exclusion, a lower accessibility to essential services like high-speed internet, and lower possession of digital skills compared to households in urban areas. Further key challenges affecting businesses in rural areas are a high unemployment rate, ageing and population decline and difficulty accessing funding.
Sectors that have experienced constant growth during the past years are Agritourism, circular economy and organic agriculture.
The collected materials and evidence will be used to create an Interactive Learning platform and courses that will be generated according to the most common difficulties and gaps in knowledge rural entrepreneurs face nowadays.
Fig 4 and 5: Poster Roll-up and brochures representing the project’s objectives and future outcomes
After the successful completion of the Multiplier Event, the day continued with a workshop held in the afternoon that envisioned the participatory co-creation of strategic business models based on the Group Model Building approach (GMB) which is one of the typical Systems Thinking methods and that allowed creating some interesting Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs) displaying the shared mental models of attending experts.
Fig 6 and 7: Impressions of the participants creating Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs) during the workshop held in the afternoon.
Fig. 8: Group photo of the participants of the afternoon workshop