Fostering Rural Entrepreneurship in Portugal's Interior

Since 2017, A Ponte has co-hosted various iniciatives to facilitate the entrepreneurial development in rural regions of Portugal as part of the Re-Nascer iniciative and in partnership with other entities. In 2019 we have been collaborating with the Municipality in Ansião in creating an idea contest to young founders and creatives.

The contest “Unleash your innovation” has receive sign-ups of numerous locals, out of which five have been admitted to participate in the program. The prgoram was held during two days in which topics like Digital Marketing, Legal, Growth and Strategy have been shared and all entrepreneurs were accompanied by experienced mentors.

The project “Travelling Bag Storage”, presented by João Costa, from Soure, won the first prize of 500,00€ from the local municipality. The US non-profit “Friends Of Portugal”, mains partner of A Ponte, issued a second prize to Tatiana Arneiro, from Leiria, with the project “Smartkey”, being the project with the best chances to be implemented on a short-term basis.

There is a lot of sh|ft to be done yet and we will soon launch news about iniciatives happening in 2020. Stay tuned, sh|fthappens.