Annual reports Annual Report 2017 | Page 24

24 Ongoing projects Smart Women period: December 2016 - December 2018 source of funding: Erasmus+ KA 2 Strategic Partnerships coordinator: Malta Communications Authority website: http://smartwomenproject.eu The Smart Women project aims to provide project participants with the digital skills they need to innovate in the digital world. The design of the methodology ensures that participants will be up to date with current developments, by training entrepreneurial women to use the tools they need to bring their businesses online. Self-employment provides a means of increasing the number of women that are active in the economy by offering the flexibility women need when trying to combine work with domestic commitments; entrepreneurship is a pre-requisite for successful self-employment. Increasingly e-commerce provides a way to start a new business; customers usually find businesses by first searching for services online. Offering online services can help businesses reach more customers and can also help business to sell internationally. In the framework of the Smart Women project, seven partners from European countries have created an innovative European Training Model, focused on women, aiming at encouraging entrepreneurship and putting business ideas into practice. The Smart Women Model combines learning using online learning platforms and face to face training based on project collaboration, peer-learning, guidance, coaching and counselling. In 2017, the project kicked off with the first meeting taking place in Malta. Project partners also met in Cyprus and in Tudela, Spain, where they had the chance to meet with the mayor of Tudela and were featured in the Navarra media. The training model was developed and a project website has been created. The project pilot will take place in the first half of 2018.