European Day of Entrepreneur

EDE is a promotion event of entrepre-neurship to promote and encourage entrepreneurship locally, nationally and internationally. Turku organizes EDE on 12 June 2007 for the fifth time.

In 2007, EDE Turku is going to be more international than ever. It will be an official part of the EUROCITIES' Economic Development Forum (EDF) and will serve as a pre-conference of the World Conference of ICSB (International Council for Small Business).

To make the best out of the synergy of the joint events, EDE and ICSB are going to have a joint programme. The Night of Entrepreneur is going to be open for the participants of the all three events to create larger forum for networking.

Selected topics:

Megatrends - Networking around the Baltic Sea

- Demographic challenge - less workingage population in Europe (Cases: Posting Polish workers abroad to provide services Global Employment and Education pro grams for immigrants in Turku)

- New potential for SME startups, fast aging society in Europe, Networking, Products (cases: Nutrition for Health. The knowledge society, International networked education, Tourism, Latest Developments of Wood Composites Vo cational Education and Training Centre Rostock)

ICSB Policy Forum

- Innovative measures in fostering en trepreneurship

• Cases from Columbia, Spain, Germany and Puerto Rico

- Innovative practices in supporting growth-oriented and innovative firms - a case of Finland

• Financing innovative and growth oriented firms
• BornGlobal Internationalization Services - Supporting internationalisation of innovative and growth-oriented firms
• Supporting commercialisation of research and innovation
• Commentary to the Finnish Cases from the perspective of European policies in support of entrepreneur- ship and innovation.