The Innovation Center of Kosovo (ICK), together with its 28 partners and supporters, held more than 38 events during Global Entrepreneurship Week this year, and included the global themes of investors, gender in entrepreneurship, youth and cities. Kosovo celebrated each theme on a different day.
GEW Kosovo featured youth competitions, seminars on VET schools and angel investors, brainstorming sessions on how to improve the entrepreneurial ecosystem and roundtable and panel discussions on a variety of topics.
Kosovo began GEW with a kick-off breakfast, and featured events on the theme youth in entrepreneurship. The American University of Kosovo launched the Entrepreneurship HUB with a panel hosted by its student government. On the panel were Uranik Begu, executive director of ICK; Michael Gold, managing director of Crimson Capital; and Besart Disha, executive director of Recura Finances, who talked about young people in Kosovo having great ideas and needing the right information to turn those ideas into reality.
During the second day, the American Chamber of Commerce, in cooperation with USAID, hosted a roundtable discussion on contract enforcement for startup businesses, promoting the initiative “Put it on Paper.”
On the GEW day supporting women in entrepreneurship, began with a panel and information session about a pilot program, “Women in Online Work” (WOW). The program, supported by the Ministry of Economic Development (GoK) with the World Bank, works to increase the participation of women in rural munipalities in Kosovo’s green, ICT-enabled jobs. There was also another event focused on empowering women in business through education, and how women deal with challenges in business.
GEW Kosovo supporters include the Embassy of Sweden Pristina, USAID Kosovo and the British Council.