From October 26th to 28th, the global refugee entrepreneurship summit took place in Venice.
This event is one of the largest and most important events for refugee entrepreneurship worldwide. Enter to Transform was represented there and led a session on "transforming migrant entrepreneurship through collaborative frameworks" together with Hello Europe and Ashoka. The session identified four barriers to refugee entrepreneurship: a lack of data, especially at the regional level; complex and bureaucratic processes which impde access to entrepreneurship and the labour market for refugees and migrants; too few funding opportunities; and the lack of a connected, visible and regognized ecosystem for migrant entrepreneurs. Possible solutions to address the problems (e.g. reframing migratin narratives, initiating a platform for exchange, harmonize methodologies on data collection, tax incentives for hiring migrants, recognize foreign qualification, handbook for the public sector etc.) were further presented.
Other sessions revolved among others around funding, working with large companies and the visibility of migrants and refugees in politics. There were also two academic sessions where the state of research was discussed.
For Enter to Transform, the conference was a great success. We networked with more actors and exchanged ideas with others.
The fifth annual REN summit
