ARIS supports STEM and Social Entrepreneurship through Erasmus projects

The ARIS Innovation centre announced the successful completion of two ERASMUS+ projects on the topics of Female Empowerment in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (FeSTEM) and the promotion of Social Entrepreneurship among young people (SEntrA). 

ARIS mentions that these projects are aligned with the company’s non-profit character and its mandate to promote science, technology, and innovation through the development of socially responsible and competitive high-tech startups. 

ARIS, co-founded by Deloitte Cyprus and the Bank of Cyprus, is an important stakeholder in the local startup community in Cyprus and an important contributor to the development and maturity of the entire ecosystem. 

SEntrA kicked off in 2020 and completed its activity at the end of August 2022. The project developed a set of non-formal learning tools supporting youth workers and organizations to actively enhance youth social entrepreneurship. The tools are free to use.  

On August 2 2022, ARIS organized an event to disseminate the project results, as well as a training session on social entrepreneurship coordinated by youth workers on the topics of design thinking, social business model canvas and sustainable development goals. 

The key results include a national report that provides research-based knowledge on the social entrepreneurship landscape in Cyprus, the SEntrA Framework that describes the relevant skills and competencies needed going forward, as well as the developments required to foster an environment that supports youth acceleration in social entrepreneurship. Moreover, a Training toolkit has been developed as an educational tool that can be used by youth workers and youth organizations to prepare them on how to develop social enterprises. 

SEntrA is a transnational collaboration between five partners including ARIS A Really Inspiring Space (Cyprus), Atlantic Technological University (Ireland), Asset Technology (Greece), Norsensus Mediaforum (Norway), and Fundatia Danis (Romania).

FeSTEM project promotes an innovative method and pedagogy that allows students in higher education to use traditional and computationally rich media to create meaningful, shareable exhibits. These exhibits will act as mentoring models for encouraging girls and women to remain active in STEM. 

Furthermore, the announcement mentions that “The main project results included the development of an Industry Toolkit, which identified the challenges faced by women pursuing careers in STEM professions, best practices towards advancing gender equality and reducing the risk of women’s social exclusion, as well as the FeSTEM Community Platform that aims to link higher education students in STEM with experienced mentors in the field. 

FeSTEM is a transnational collaboration between partners from Cyprus (ARIS and the Cyprus Interaction Lab of the Cyprus University of Technology), Greece (University of Macedonia), Italy (the European centre of studies and initiatives CESIE), Spain (Magenta Consultoría Projects S.L.U.) and Slovenia (Education Centre Geoss).

FeSTEM organised its final event on June 2nd. You can watch the full event below.