Mondragon Team Academy launches the #SocialFactory program
Mondragon Team Academy launches the #SocialFactory program
Mondragon Team Academy launches the #SocialFactory program
The incubator of the social economy and purpose-driven enterprises
Although the Social Economy and Cooperativism have a long history in the Basque Country and the world, the truth is that there is little visibility of the model and its potential among the general population and especially among young people. All this generates difficulties in attracting young talent and ensuring generational replacement. There is also a lack of integrated training processes for entrepreneurship in the Social Economy in university environments. For that reason, Mondragon Team Academy has created #SocialFactory, a program co-financed by the European Social Fund, which is already incubating three Social Economy companies, through the LEINN degree of Mondragon Unibertsitatea.
From the perspective of the Business Faculty of Mondragon Unibertsitatea and its community of young team entrepreneurs Mondragon Team Academy (MTA), this group has more barriers to entrepreneurship, such as lack of knowledge, experience or resources. However, they are committed to change and only need guidance in the early stages of the business, a learning community, to be guided in the search for viable ideas, greater knowledge of social issues, stakeholders and market logic.
Precisely, the Mondragon Team Academy (MTA) network is committed to promoting the Social Economy in its community. In these 15 years of experience, more than 200 Junior Enterprise Associations have been created in the MTA community as a learning tool, almost 2,500 LEINNers have been trained, more than 70 companies have been set up, of which 25 (35%) belong to the Social Economy and 400 direct jobs have been created in them. The idea is to further scale the impact to 600 people in order to create 50 purposeful Social Economy companies.
Capturing talent at an early stage
The European Social Fund Plus within its Employment, Training, Education and Social Economy Program, EFESO has selected #SocialFactory as one of the projects to be implemented within the period 2023-2029. The purpose of this project is to create a comprehensive entrepreneurial itinerary aimed at attracting talent and ideas in early stages, which provide solutions to real needs and challenges of the territory, from the university, but also creating links with other groups, such as unemployed people or people looking for professional retraining.
The actions of #SocialFactory include training, incubating, accompanying and mentoring businesses that want to be part of the Social Economy, as well as disseminating and generating alliances to ensure the sustainability of new companies. It is based on the values of MTA and with a very clear DNA: teamwork, positive impact, innovation and technology as value creators and a glocal outlook, within a cooperative university entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Disruptive programs
Mondragon Team Academy starts the project by provoking connections between people and ideas to create work teams that learn and undertake; one of the formats that has helped us in recent years has been the launch of disruptive programs aimed at different profiles, as is the case of MEINN, Master of Entrepreneurship and Open Innovation (in recruitment process during the months of June-July 2024). MEINN is an official university master's degree aimed at people who want to become entrepreneurs or intra-entrepreneurs in a cooperative and groundbreaking environment; within a real and diverse environment; with a multidisciplinary team and being part of an international ecosystem.
The creation of a learning community is one of the objectives of the #SocialFactory. By participating in programs such as MEINN, entrepreneurs who cohabit our ecosystem will be part of a larger community that adds, supports and transforms their entrepreneurial purpose. The doors of #SocialFactory are now open to anyone who wants to come. #BilbaoBerrikuntzaFaktoria #mondragonunibertsitatea #enpresagintza
More information: https://www.mondragon.edu/en/master-degree-entrepreneurship-open-innovation