Northern Grampians Shire Council and The Australian Centre for Rural Entrepreneurship (ACRE) will be hosting a “Wide Horizons” workshop series aimed at young entrepreneurs wanting to implement world changing ideas.
The Wide Horizons workshop series will run for six weeks commencing on Wednesday 7 October and is available to 15 shire residents aged between 14 and 24 years old. Due to current Coronavirus restrictions, the program will be delivered online.
The program is essentially focussed on developing social enterprise concepts. Social enterprises are “for profit” businesses that have social, cultural or environmental aims and they reinvest the majority of the profit they raise back into the business to serve those aims.
The workshops will also include Meet The Entrepreneur forums. The forums will feature rural entrepreneurs who will talk about their challenges and achievements in business. Q and A sessions will be held afterwards.
The virtual sessions will be held every Wednesday from 5pm to 6:30pm commencing 7 October 2020 via Zoom.
The workshop series will kick off with a general introduction on understanding social entrepreneurship followed by a session where participants will reflect on what change they want to see in their community and the world.
The participants will learn firsthand from entrepreneurs how to implement their ideas, what to expect along the way, how to hone their entrepreneurial mindset and how to manage pitfalls.
Northern Grampians Shire Councillor, Karen Hyslop, expects the Wide Horizons workshop series will have broad appeal and places will fill quickly with the shire’s younger residents.
“We are very excited to be co-hosting the Wide Horizons workshop series with the Australian Centre for Rural Entrepreneurship. I have no doubt it will inspire our budding, young entrepreneurs to develop ideas that will not just have an impact on our region but potentially the world,” she said.
“In the current climate, it is important to give our youth opportunities to really push their ideas to the forefront in an appropriately mentored way.”
“We may not be able to offer face to face mentoring at the minute but there will be a lot of benefits derived from this program in its online format.”
“It gives our young residents the chance to engage with successful and inspiring people and get a feel for what it is like to run a socially responsible business.”
