Progress report for
Lockdown Economy
Achievement at a glance
Since June 2020, we collected and published video-interviews with 152 small business owners from 27 countries in 14 languages about the impact of the pandemic. Including series on Tourism and Food sectors. 108 video-stories were transcribed and published. We shared both versions on all our channels and reached 33000+ people. They served as educational materials in three university courses: two MBA courses with the Anahuac Mayab University and a Bachelor course at Epoka University. The team has grown from 2 to 68 volunteers.Challenges faced in implementation
The main challenge we face is zero-budget. The initiative is run on savings of two co-founders and their full-time pro bono involvement. Despite our efforts, we could not receive sponsorship or funding to run the operations. That slowed down the speed with which we could have worked. For example, many things that could be automated through paid subscriptions had to be done manually. The technological quality of video-recordings was only as high as the personal computers of our volunteers permit. The internet prices and connectivity issues were an obstacle of productivity and limited our ability to interview more entrepreneurs than we did.We had the ambition to publish the learning materials produced based on the interviews on the leading online courses platforms. But after contacting them, we found out that to be featured on there will require significant funding. Which for the moment we don’t have.
Another challenge was the lack of institutional recognition and support. We reached out to a number of international organizations asking them to endorse our initiative and help us share it. That would enable us to reach our beneficiaries and help them. But so far we continue to be completely grassroots, finding other paths of outreach.
Beneficiaries
Small business owners, self-employed professionals, entrepreneurs, students, volunteers. With special attention to women and youth-led businesses.
Actions
In Oct 2020 we were awarded Gold as “Hero of the Year: Helping others during COVID-19” for giving ideas on how to save their businesses to 8000+ entreprenreurs.Small business owners got a forum to share their struggles, successes, and experiences of dealing with COVID-19 pandemic, and learn from each other. That increased their capacity to adapt, improved their flexibility, resiliency and responsiveness. Especially for the businesses initiated by the vulnerable, such as women and youth. Out of 152 participants, 55% were women.
We connected them with a wider community of entrepreneurs and fostered new partnerships even in the cultures where entrepreneurs see each other as rivals.
We have trained each participating volunteer (68) on how to build or improve their professional online image, use digital technology for virtual collaboration, and improve their communication and networking skills. As a result, six of them already found a job.
During the first MBA course, five businesses were helped by 18 students to address real challenges. More than 150 students got an opportunity to be exposed to multicultural business mindsets and allowed them to take a leading role in creating an innovative solution to meet the needs of society during these unprecedented times.