Speeches from the City of Tampere, Business Tampere and Pirkanmaa Entrepreneurs, as well as familiarisation with TAMK Proakatemia training, provided especially visiting students with interesting perspectives on the possibilities of education and entrepreneurship in Finland.
Greeting and tips from City of Tampere, Business Tampere and Pirkanmaa Entrepreneurs
The first training day took place at Nokia Areena. The morning’s guest was Carita Prokki from the City of Tampere, who gave the participants views of the city’s innovation and development as well as diverse national and international cooperation. Carita inspired the participants by telling about the Wellcoming City programme in Tampere and encouraged young people to study and become entrepreneurs and future makers.
In the afternoon we met Heini Wallander from Business Tampere and Sanni Välimäki from Pirkanmaa Entrepreneurs. Both gave the students interesting information about the various networks and forms of support available to entrepreneurs, among other things. It is important for young entrepreneurs to find partners, mentors and information that will support them on their entrepreneurial path and help them move forward through the ups and downs. Also, when entrepreneurs find that there is a lack of support in their respective ecosystems it is important that they find their way to co-operate with this kind of organisations and networks.
General management and business development, and human resources
The first actual themes of the project’s training and the topics of the Tampere meeting were general management and business development, and human resources. During the training days, project coach Sven Rassl challenged the students to work and reflect on issues such as entrepreneur leadership, team culture and risk management. Sven also spoke about intercultural differences, and project coach Päivi Heimonen also brought up self-leadership and teamwork. The students worked in groups on these topics and presented their own observations and perspectives that they considered important.
Project coach Cristián Burr Raty inspired students with his own entrepreneurial story and opened up the Entrecomp Competency Framework for students. The students were given the task of reflecting on their own competences: skills, knowledge and attitude. An important part of the learning assignment also at home was “My Learning Contract” and looking at where I am and where I want to go. Students will certainly reflect on this throughout their studies and steer their own entrepreneurial path forward.
Getting to know Proakatemia and its students gave inspiration
The second training day took place at Tampere University of Applied Sciences and we also got to know Proakatemia and its students’ business ideas. Proakatemia and studying there were presented by students Siiri Varhala and Eemeli Junnila, as well as a few other students whom we met during our visit to the Proakatemia premises. One of the students we met was Terēze Teibe from Latvia, who talked about her studies in Finland and at Proakatemia and whose story inspired especially Estonian and Latvian participants.
During the training day, our students also had the opportunity to interview and talk to groups of Proakatemia students who presented their business ideas and ask them, among other things, where they got their business ideas from and from whom they receive support as entrepreneurs.
The participants of the Succeed in Business project met each other for the second time, and the discussion and work went smoothly in a relaxed and encouraged atmosphere. The example given by Proakatemia to students of self-direction and self-activity support students’ progress towards entrepreneurial identity. It was a pleasure to hear and notice how the participants were already bolder in getting to know each other and expressing their thoughts and opinions in the discussions. This is a good place to continue diving deeper into entrepreneurship and the development of everyone’s own entrepreneurship as the project continues in online sessions and face-to-face meetings during spring 2025.
Text: Päivi Heimonen, Principal lecturer, Applied research centre, TAMK
Picture: Päivi Heimonen
