FUTURE HEROES, ESTONIA, LATVIA , LITHUANIA

The programme operates over four-month cycles in Estonia (six-months in Latvia). Throughout the cycle participants develop their own entrepreneurial projects from scratch in groups of five with the support of mentors. The projects aim to solve issues that participants are passionate about: topics of the 2020 edition included food waste and dialogue with the deaf community. Over the course of the programme, participants attend a series of eight to ten free workshops, held in English. Inspirational speakers kick off each session and are followed by a practical skills workshops and team mentoring. Workshop topics include strength identification, ideation and team formation, entrepreneurship and project management, financial literacy and fundraising, leadership and problem solving, digital impact and media literacy and pitching. Meetings are held every Saturday and include a buddy-programme and a support system to guide participants. In each team, participants take on specific role depending on their projects (e.g. CEO, CFO, etc.) and meet with mentors monthly to check in on the progress of the project. The programme is hands on and participants can develop their project in different formats, either formally (registration of a company or an NGO if the team members are old enough) or informally.  Participants are also encouraged to build community among themselves (“sisterhood”). The programme culminates in a final pitch and a gala event where participants present their project and results in front of a panel including entrepreneurs and investors. They receive feedback and guidance, and the event includes awards. Programme graduates can join the “Big Sisters” programme and further develop their skills while contributing to developing subsequent editions of Future Heroes. The programme adjusts its content every year based on feedback from participants.

How did the programme adapt to the Pandemic? Due to the pandemic, the first edition of the Latvian programme was held entirely remotely. Workshops and inspirational speeches were held on Zoom and Facebook live. Communication with mentors and participants and project development leveraged various virtual communication and collaboration tools (e.g. Facebook Workplace, Google classroom, WhatsApp, Miro, and Whimsical). While participants missed face-to-face socialisation and the online model added a burden to remote schooling, the programme was deemed successful and participants reached their goals and were able to further develop their digital skills. The Estonian programme was initially held in-person but now mixes online and offline workshops.