Knowledge Centre for development of entrepreneurial Competences

A virtual Knowledge Centre to support practioners in education and training in stimulating entrepreneurial spirit and competences on course delivery.

Those with a responsibility for education and training, pedagogical supervisors, educators, teachers from education and training organisations, coaches in specific courses, business representatives (intrapreneurship, …)

Aim--> increase and improve entrepreneurship in Flanders.(where there is historically a low level of entrepreneurship) giving a better  global view on initiatives in Flanders. Approach: Collecting and structuring information about the entrepreneurial initiatives not only in Flanders but also abroad. Dissemination of information 1.Highlighting best practices or interesting news in a blog format ("In the picture")2. Semi-automatic news delivery to website via RSS - feeds . categorised (by theme and date). 3. Online interactive database structured around different categories  4.Storing and highlighting (upcoming) events on Entrepreneurship. 5.Meta-search engine: simultaneous search in external and internal relevant databases. 6.Links to several otherrelevant  websites. 2Two-monthly newsletter with  interesting news and activities. Added value for users: easy up-to-date information on ‘entrepreneurial learning’ topics, ready-made educational methods of delivery. Promotion of initiatives on social and sustainable entrepreneurship

Official launch in November 2006 - ongoing

website: www.competento.be

Needs analysis: identified low levels of entrepreneurship in Flanders, with the need to change in mental attitudes -->a second issue was the evidence of low  entrepreneurial spirit. There are already a large number of initiatives on entrepreneurial education availabe, but there is a diffuse and unclear market need for a clear overview for the delivering education and training target group. The conclusion arrived at pointed to the need for a database and sharing point (hub) around entrepreneurial education in Flanders.

A website could offer an answer to this needs.

June 2006 Development of a blueprint --> Testing by different panels :internal (SYNTRA) + people from the network of entrepreneurial education in Flanders. The website was uploaded onto the test server, and final errors were debugged.

 The official launch of the website was organized in November 2006, together with a big regional event and a national seminar on entrepreneurial education.

The website continues to grow and we  continue to redefine the needs and the concept of the knowledge centre.

Problems : 1. Anysurfer label: is a Belgian quality mark for accessible websites (for disabled people); the downside is that website became less attractive: for example no flash, everything in html with larger fonts. 2. Performance problem: slow server, due to a large database, --> a few corrections in script made the server run faster

Future plans: new evaluation, quality audit, hardware updates