On December 16, the Alcobendas Campus of the Universidad Europea held the 1st meeting of winners of the Young Social Entrepreneur Awards, the event that recognizes 10 social initiatives each year and gives visibility to projects which can inspire society. The meeting brought together most of the award winners, from the 80 young people aged 18-29 who have won since 2009.
The reception was attended by former directors of the JES awards, Laura Gómez and Caroline Jérôme, who gave a retrospective view of the award; the current director, Andrés Pina; and the Director of Communications and Institutional Relations of the Universidad Europea, José María Palomares.
Attendees shared their stories and successes to encourage the construction of a community of social innovators around the JES Awards. The event also featured the participation of the young Catalan entrepreneur Pau García-Milà, founder of start-ups like IdeaFoster and EyeOS, author of several books on innovation, ideas and communication, and named Innovator of the Year in 2011 by the MIT Technology Review.
García-Milá led the workshop “From failure to success: how to apply innovation quickly in social environments” with the young social entrepreneurs, who shared impressions and tips for business success based on their experience:
- Accept failure, and use it to drive the next project.
- Forget pride, learn from your environment, acknowledge shortcomings, acquire know-how from those who have achieved success, and keep ambition under control.
- Be persevering, the need to work hard and consistently and weather adversities.
- Let criticism bounce off, ignore unjustified criticism to avoid becoming discouraged.
- Innovate, innovate, innovate, express the need to innovate in the social context.