Project name: Strengthening innovative social entrepreneurship practices for disruptive business settings in Thailand and Myanmar / STEPup

Thailand and Myanmar are facing key social problems such as economic disparities, demographic challenges and educational gaps that hold back the countries´ development and advancement of its people. This has led to an increased interest in using social entrepreneurship to address some of the most pressing issues by delivering both social impact & economic benefit. Despite this wave of innovation, there is a lack in really disruptive ideas that create sustainable, yet profitable businesses. Higher education institutions are in need of modernizing their physical infrastructure & upgrading of teaching capacities in order to be able to react to current educational developments & to develop future change makers.

STEPup aims to modernize existing social entrepreneurship practices and promote innovation in Thai and Burmese HEIs by integrating advanced learning tools for the creation of disruptive business ideas into existing academic structures, while strengthening the university-business collaboration through participatory schemes on a local and regional level. The project aims

1. To promote disruptive social entrepreneurship practices in selected Thai and Burmese regions by recognizing their needs and transferring best practice approaches from European to the partners in Thailand and Myanmar.

2. To facilitate innovative ICT learning methods in social entrepreneurship education by developing and implementing capacity buildings trainings, workshops and other tools to increase the labour market relevance of social entrepreneurs.

3. To foster innovation in the field of social entrepreneurship by involving established social entrepreneurs in student-business learning activities within an institutionalized physical environment (Social Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hubs).

4. To enhance the cooperation higher education-enterprise and students learning experience by developing Innovative Social Entrepreneurship Case studies in cooperation with established social entrepreneurs, to apply the innovative methods learned and prepare the students for innovative thinking & acting in “real life” contexts.

5. To promote greater access to high quality educational materials on the topic of teaching & learning methods and technology enhancement, providing Open Educational Resources to regional and international communities.

Thailand and Myanmar are investing to modernize and internationalize their economies for the betterment of their respective societies.
In order to be successful, a focus needs to be placed on the development of the educational system as it builds the capacities of human resources who will contribute to the advancements of the countries as a whole. STEPup wishes to be part of this progress by implementing a well thought-through methodology that is meant to have a long-term impact on the higher education institutions and target groups involved in each of the Partner Countries. Each result in the project is being developed by an interdisciplinary team of matter experts from Europe and South-East Asia, which requires constant communication and an open mindset towards other (organizational) cultures.