In order not to be taken as a Fools’ Day announcement, we had to wait until April 2nd to announce our second entrepreneurial event, aka Startup Live Athens #2, five months after our first one.
Just for your information, the situation in Greece did not change much, at least not for the better. We saw Athens, literally burning in February, as demonstrations against austerity measures were going on.
Unemployment is rising, especially amongst the youth, poverty and social exclusion are more than just a fact in our everyday lives. Elections are said to come this spring but are not announced yet.
Some of us are disappointed that a campaign asks “Give Greece a Chance” , because Greece is taking the chance to change itself. Greek culture and history shows that its people do not give up.
Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes that see reality. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis
Sure this process will take some time but it just started. So, we wrapped ourselves together, had long chats about the future over some Cretan Raki and decided to tap into the chance to provide our community with the tools they need in order to start dreaming again and make steps outside their comfort zone and towards the future.
As we love experimenting, learning new things and passing the knowledge, we will focus this time on cultural and social entrepreneurship, an almost “untapped land” in the new entrepreneurial space and especially in Greece. Those sectors show a different way to establish sustainable businesses based on cultural and social values and strongly impact- oriented mission. We believe that in order to build up a sustainable economy, we need to get back to the roots of community and society; this is what we see in cultural and social entrepreneurship.
So, why not dream big and take steps outside our comfort zone?
Originally published on Startup Live blog.
