the project

DIST is a project funded by ERASMUS+ programme, Key Action 2 “Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices” Action “Strategic Partnership”, which started on September 2015 and will end on August 2018.

Entrepreneurship is recognized as a powerful driver of economic growth and job creation. It creates new companies and jobs, opens up new markets, and nurtures new skills and capabilities. Entrepreneurship makes economies more competitive and innovative and is crucial in achieving the objectives of several European sectorial policies. Commercializing new ideas improves productivity and creates wealth. Without the jobs from new firms, average net employment growth in Europe would be negative. For this reason, one of the main recommendations by the EU Commission Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan (2012), is to promote entrepreneurial education and training.

However, in the EU the uptake and the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education in European vocational schools are still far from being fully satisfactory. This is mainly due to lack of suitable materials and lack of skills in trainers. The 2006 European Key Competences Framework defines sense of initiative and entrepreneurship as an individual’s ability to turn ideas into action. It includes creativity, innovation and risk-taking, as well as the ability to plan and manage projects in order to achieve objectives. The benefits of entrepreneurship education are not limited to boosting start-ups, innovative ventures and new jobs.

Entrepreneurship is a competence for everyone, helping people to be more creative and self-confident in whatever they undertake.

Digital Storytelling is the process by which peoples share their story and creative imaginings with others. It comes from Storytelling which is also a medium for sharing, interpreting, offering the content and meaning of a story to an audience. This newer form of storytelling emerged with the advent of accessible media production techniques. These new technologies allow individuals to share their stories over the Internet and other electronic distribution systems.

DIST promote the innovative use of the digital storytelling for

1. spreading sense of initiative and entrepreneurship among unemployed,
2. supporting aspirant entrepreneurs to set up their business,
3. supporting entrepreneurs to improve their performance

Objectives and methodology

DIST project aims to promote the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship (SIE) by increasing entrepreneurial education and training based on the methodology of storytelling. Storytelling is nowadays used in many fields of research and intervention (educational, organizational, political, entertainment, …). Storytelling is the normal way of human thinking: through micro-narrative humans give meaning to life events and share values with others. Storytelling is very effective because it brings together the rational and the emotional, and elicits identification and emulation in the listener. The growth and ubiquitous diffusion of the web make now possible the digital storytelling enlarging further its diffusion and impact, also in the training and educational field.

The tools developed within DIST project could be used directly at a distance by the final target groups and mediated by the trainers in face to face training setting.