ETIC will train and match 200 young aspiring entrepreneurs (Fellows) with 100 social business leaders that are heading reconstruction efforts to rebuild Tohoku through economic empowerment in 3 years (from Jun 2011 to Mar 2014). The lack of young aspiring individuals is the bottleneck to promote recovery projects effectively and efficiently, and the demand for this service is larger than originally anticipated.
After the earthquake, many local leaders have been responding and working to rebuild the economy in Tohoku. However, there is still a lack of younger manpower, especially due to the aging population in the disaster affected areas. Over 25% of the population is elderly (35% in coastal area) and there has been outflow of young workforce to cities, which resulted in critical shortage of core leadership talents to execute recovery projects on the ground, at Executive Director level.
This 3-year effort will train and match 200 young aspiring fellows with 100 social business leaders who commit to rebuild Tohoku in the long term. The social business leaders are to be carefully selected, and ETIC will provide various business support with them. The aspiring fellows will be identified through collaboration between ETIC and its higher education and business network. ETIC will provide them with leadership training, business resources, financial support and long-term follow-up.
In the mid- to long-term, we will create entrepreneurial ecosystem to support and encourage entrepreneurial challenges. As Tohoku used to be relying on government subsidization and investment by large companies and the aging rate is very high, Tohoku struggles at low 3.7% of new business start-up rate compare to 4.2% of national average. Entrepreneurship by local small business, youth and women will be the key to attract youth who are willing to devote into the recovery work.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
