World Cafe Session

On the 25th of March, the Enter to Transform consortium met to get a common understanding of some key terms in the project. Unfortunately, due to Covid-19 the team as a whole could not meet in person. Therefore, we made use of innovative online formats to proceed with the project according to the timeline. We organised a digital world café, splitting into breakout rooms and discussing the issues using the “deep democracy” method.

Deep democracy is an attitude that focuses on the awareness of voices that are both central and marginal. Unlike “classical” democracy, which focuses on majority rule, deep democracy suggests that all voices, states of awareness, and frameworks of reality are important. Deep Democracy also suggests that the information carried within these voices, awarenesses, and frameworks are all needed to understand the complete process of the system. It reveals what some people in the group are aware of but others are not. In zoom sessions with many participants, the group’s potential and wisdom is often like an iceberg: the bigger part is unconscious and therefore hidden. Thus, deep democracy is an appropriate method to incorporate all views and involve everyone.

We focused on three notions: hubs, ecosystems and the three business phases (stand-up, start-up, scale-up).

Hub: Hubs are virtual or physical meeting spaces with many functions: a room to experiment, for knowledge transfer, collaboration and support, and in the sense of a safe space for that allows for failure. The project proposal for Enter to Transform emphasises the intention to avoid parallel structures. Therefore, a hub should be a connection point of existing support where RR can improve their (business) ideas. Preferable there should be an interconnection between the hub and other important stakeholders. The hub should serve as a node in the ecosystem. All hubs should foster international collaboration and start a network of participants. Against the background of Covid-19, virtual tools support physical spaces.

Ecosystems: An ecosystem is regarded as a catalyst for contacts and a liaison between different groups. Important aspects are knowledge transfer and teaching how to work with uncertainty. Ecosystems consist of actors like chambers of commerce, entrepreneurs, venture capital investors, academic institutions, municipalities and public administration units as well as successful businesses. All these actors can support RR. Each ecosystem is embedded in a certain social, economic and cultural context.

Business phases stand-up, start-up, scale-up: The stand-up phase was perceived as crucial, because people might have a different ideas or different approaches towards business. Therefore, it needs to be communicated what it really means to be an entrepreneur. A good idea alone is not enough. During the stand-up phase, the whole group could be mentored together. As re-starters should be already motivated, this phase is more about orientation and positioning within the market. In the start-up phase, a trustful relationship is very important. In this phase, the business plan are formulated. During the scale-up phase, the business expands and might transform. The RR businesses are heterogeneous and so the support should be especially when a plan fails.

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