From 10 to 15 June 2024, the Municipality of Edremit, in Turkey, hosted the last event of the European project Make it Grow, promoted by the Erasmus+ -Capacity Building in the Youth sector. This event, a transnational hackathon, was the final opportunity for training and meeting young aspiring entrepreneurs from Italy, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Turkey. The Municipality of Cinisello Balsamo, leader of the project, coordinated this initiative that involved the participants in an intense learning and development.

During the three previous seminars, held in Bosnia, Albania and Montenegro, young entrepreneurs had the opportunity to progressively develop their design ideas, refining them and making them more concrete. The event in Turkey was the culmination of this process; participants immersed themselves in hands-on workshops dedicated to the design and implementation of a crowdfunding campaign.

The workshops were led by experts in the field, including Giulia, Teresa and Naima of the Meraki - Desideri Culturali Association, training partners of the project since its inception. Through their experience in crowdfunding and community involvement, participants were able to learn innovative strategies for raising funds and supporting their business ventures.

The days of activities included:

• Visit to the City of Edremit: the Mayor of Edremit, welcomed us and stressed the importance of initiatives such as Make it Grow for youth entrepreneurial growth.
• Interactive work sessions: exploration of the different methods of fundraising, both online and offline, study of successful crowdfunding campaigns, analyzing the elements that determine their effectiveness.
• Working in teams divided by nationality: participants began to design their own crowdfunding campaigns, focusing on the definition of the communication strategy, the identification of the target and the selection of the most suitable means of communication.

The last day was a hackathon, where working groups had an opportunity to present their ideas for a limited time. Using the Design Sprint template, participants validated their hypotheses and refined the details of the campaign.
They worked on goal setting, resource and timeline analysis, community engagement strategy, donor network building and awards.

The Edremit hackathon was a starting point for new business and innovation projects, with the aim of supporting young participants in their growth path and in creating projects that can have a positive impact both locally and globally.