Small businesses are in general more vulnerable and have less opportunities to compete with large transnational companies while also tackling the adverse effects of climate change and seasonality. Innovative digital solutions can provide efficient ways to overcome these challenges, especially for the companies located in the rural areas, but people (owners, managers, employees) involved tend to have only low or medium level of IT knowledge. Furthermore, contrary to multinational companies, these businesses neither have the opportunity to hire experts in online marketing/IT/environment protection nor have time and budget enough to educate themselves.
To give a concrete answer, the #KEEPUP – Enhancing the digital competences, e-commerce skills and climate-adaptive entrepreneurial knowledge of small rural businesses affected by seasonality project, lasting a bit more than two years (December 2020 – February 2022), is implemented by a transnational consortium consisting of 6 partners from 5 European countries (Hungary with the lead partner, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain).
#KEEPUP aims to develop a training package for these target groups covering digital entrepreneurial competences, e-commerce and climate adaptation. The partnership would like to spread innovative practices in the digital era and prepare the stakeholders on how to benefit from the advantages of digitalisation. The importance of e-commerce is significant as the market is expected to continue to grow, and traditional shopping habits are changing, especially due to the current external effects. Moreover, climate change causes a shift in travel behavior, not to mention its effects on agriculture, environment and seasons. With the developed learning materials, even small, rural businesses affected by seasonality can be more competitive, more open to sustainability and more flexible on climate-adaptation.
Accordingly, in terms of Intellectual outputs, projects’ main outcomes are the following:
- IO1 – Module on enhancing digital competences: learning materials on digital competences
- IO2 – Module on enhancing e-commerce skills: learning materials on e-commerce skills
- IO3 – Module on enhancing climate-adaptive entrepreneurial knowledge: learning materials on climate adaptive entrepreneurial knowledge
- IO4 – Developing an e-learning platform that will contain a manual of the e-learning platform and a handbook for the e-learners.
Stay up to date on the project online:
Visit the website: www.keepup-project.eu
Follow the project activities on
- Facebook: @keepuprojecteducation
Read the press release