The two institutions have organized a conference to select the team that will participate in the second edition of the VIVID MTA incubator. The results of the VIVID incubator were announced at the conference. The main aim of the project is to help rural municipalities attract talented and qualified young people.

More universities have joined the project started by Mondragon Team Academy and Emplea Foundation; such as the University of Navarra, the Public University of Navarra, the University of Zaragoza and the UPV-EHU.
In order to select the young people who will participate, a competition has been held so that the LEINN degree candidates can prepare a proposal that will respond to this challenge: "Imagine that you are a town of 500 inhabitants. What initiatives would you put in place to attract talented young people to your town and allow them to stay there?".

The young participants met last Friday at the Oñati campus of the Faculty of Business. During the conference, two panel discussions were held, with different objectives: in one panel discussion, some professors from the University of Mondragon, the University of Navarra and the University of Valladolid wanted to reveal how training centers (together with other agents) can be pioneers in the transformation and dynamism of territories . In that case, the way is to become a strategic resource for rural development.

In the second panel discussion, the students who lived in that town for several months in 2022 reported on two experiences. The purpose of the stay was to find out the reasons for depopulation and to provide solutions against it. Students from several universities have developed projects that have had an impact on the territory, in various formats (through graduation projects and internships, among others).

In the first experience (graduation thesis format), the concept of a service model to support entrepreneurship has been designed, aimed at young people in rural areas and based on the previous experience of the Espacio Alpha project, and with the continuation of the VIVID Academy training program. In fact, this program is conceptualizing the follow-up and support of entrepreneurship.

The scope of repopulation tourism

The second experience was presented in the round table developed in the field of repopulation tourism. With this aim, one of the students explained how they carried out an immersion process in the territory, how they were in contact with the citizens and how they faced the challenges of these citizens. In the second part of the event, the competition was held. There, five groups of young students from Mondragon University's Entrepreneurial Leadership and Innovation degree have provided solutions to meet the proposed challenge, and one of them has won.

Finally, the attendees shared a space for networking or working online, that is, students from other degrees or levels who were eager to discover the possibilities offered by rural areas and, more specifically, the VIVID incubator.

Digital platform cooperatives

On the other hand, Mondragon Team Academy, the entrepreneurship unit of the Faculty of Business of Mondragon University (MTA-MU), has created the digital platform 'Platform Coop Venture Builder', to promote the entrepreneurial ecosystem of cooperatives, to research, promote and accelerate digital platform cooperatives through the national network. The project will be implemented in the Basque Country, Catalonia, the Community of Valencia and Andalusia, by institutions and entities that promote collective entrepreneurship.

Platform cooperatives are a growing phenomenon and an option for large privately owned digital platforms. These types of cooperatives are models, as they combine the long history of traditional State cooperatives and the diverse learning and opportunities that digital work platforms offer today, offering decent and responsible work. It is also an opportunity to strengthen the cooperative movement, as digitization and digital platform models have great potential for growth and scaling.

Although there is a seed of platform cooperatives in Spain, it is still necessary to encourage greater articulation, networking and coordinated work to strengthen the movement. From this point of view, the project "Platform Coop Venture Builder: energizing the ecosystem of cooperative entrepreneurship, through the expansion, research and incubation of platform cooperatives" was created. It has received funding through the call for support of the Comprehensive Social Economy Promotion Plan, with the aim of creating an economic, inclusive and sustainable network for 2022 and 2023, within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan implemented by the Spanish Ministry of Labor and Social Economy with Next Generation Funds of the European Union.

The 'Platform Coop Venture Builder' project is underway aims to energize the national network to research, promote and accelerate the cooperative ecosystem and digital platform cooperatives, and thus, in the medium and long term, promote the re-establishment of cooperatives and the creation of jobs linked to the digital economy and cooperative platforms.

What are venture builders?

The project aims to create a cooperative venture builder, a similar factory of companies on the way to development. It adapts business ideas or models that have worked in other countries or markets, then apply them to the local market and launch new start-ups. The aim is therefore not only to protect own projects, but also to incubate and accelerate existing projects that have the potential to make a cooperative and social contribution in the field of digital platform cooperatives. This business model has distinctive values in terms of shared ownership. It is a process of co-creation and co-participation, focused more on people and the good of all, than on technology or capital as sources of power.