Dr. Alexandra David from the Institute for Work and Technology and Dr. Judith Terstriep, who contributed to the report participated from the Enter to Transform consortium. They represent two of the more than 130 experts from academia, politics, business and media who have met in several groups over the past year to discuss the following 4 topics:
- To assess the root causes of the lack of a well-articulated and connected migrant workforce and entrepreneurial ecosystem in Europe;
- To analyze the systems in which migrants operate as employees and entrepreneurs;
- To co-design critical shifts to achieve system change and
- To brainstorm on steps to collective action.
With her expertise and practical knowledge from the Enter to Transform project, Dr. Alexandra David served as one of the presenters in the event. She underlined the value of migrant entrepreneurs for sustainable development and emphasized that migrants are the backbone of economies in Europe. She also explained that nowadays we can see an upscaling in the field of migrant businesses as more and more migrants are starting their businesses in the tech industry. What we have seen in the Enter to transform project is, that the needs and stories of our clients are very different. Every migrant and refugee entrepreneur is unique and needs individual support.
Four visions and major steps for migrant and refugee employment and entrepreneurship were presented: For improved data, a platform or knowledge network is recommended to share data and look at what already exists. Second, it would be desirable to hire more migrants and refugees, which would require inclusive hiring processes. Third, better financial support for migrant and refugee entrepreneurs and more support services such as Enter to Transform would be needed. Fourth, in order to create a connected and resilient migrant workforce and entrepreneurial ecosystem we need to create a connected network of innovation, workforce, entrepreneurial and start-up ecosystems on the topic for knowledge exchange and funding support. This would include helping local ecosystems, good practice sharing, co-creating an action plan on how to work with the public sector to improve public-private-partnerships (PPP) and developing special purpose vehicles to share project ownership.
