LocationsBy the UNDP Peru Accelerator Lab
CREATING CREANDO (Part 3): The results of our 2022 learning journey
15 de Agosto de 2023
CREANDO was born with the goal of being a launch platform for migrant and refugee entrepreneurs that live in Peru. Today we’re more than that: We’re a community committed to strengthening their digital and entrepreneurial skills and bridging the gap with the Peruvian entrepreneurial ecosystem.
In our previous blog posts, we shared the CREANDO design process, and specifically its value proposition and components. After six inspiring weeks, the first journey was successfully completed in 2022. In the following weeks we received very positive feedback and testimonies from the participants, who continuously applied what they learned in each section while also strengthening their businesses. You can read their stories of resilience and their take on CREANDO here.
Our achievements in our first CREANDO learning journey
CREANDO’s activity formats
Belonging is a basic need. CREANDO showed that being part of a community boosts motivation. To an entrepreneur, being a member of a collective that shares challenges and dreams makes a difference and gives a renewed sense of hope to an uncertain reality.
We learned that migrant entrepreneurs value the opportunity to learn on the go, and directly apply what they learn to their businesses. With very little time left in their day - sometimes they joined the sessions while they were cooking in their restaurants or packing orders -, the participants appreciated the diversity of formats and the dynamic manner the different topics were presented. Above all, they valued their time through CREANDO to share their concerns and pain points with other entrepreneurs like them, to talk and be heard.
Another important highlight was the female majority among participants. This reality has made us consider including specific modules that delve further into their specific challenges as women, migrants, and entrepreneurs. All content shared during the CREANDO 2022 learning journey remained available online for ongoing review on the UNDP Peru Accelerator Lab’s interactive online platform.
Based on our analysis of the content on the Lab’s online repository and how many times the recording of the sessions was played, we concluded that visual materials should have a “snack” format (no longer than 7 minutes) and be straight to the point, without the need to watch 1.5 hours of video. We’ll also rely on the snack format and pre-recorded sessions for our 2023 CREANDO cohort.
Two experiments we considered for the 2023 CREANDO journey
Two experiments completed during our first edition of CREANDO were particularly successful and remained on our radar and portfolio for the improved 2023 journey:
1. A tasty map
In 2022, as the first step to participate in the CREANDO learning journey, every participant was invited to register themselves in the online Migrant Talent Map on the Lab’s digital repository. In this map-directory the CREANDO entrepreneurs gave visibility to their businesses, including pictures and geolocation, as well as contact information. This interaction between peers brought learnings in itself. The map allowed us to identify that 34% of migrant ventures were gastronomic businesses, data that was validated among the 8 business categories framework listed on our first blog.
We used this relevant information, as well as other powerful insights, to build a tailor made program for the specific categories of migrant businesses. We also validated a hypothesis: Gastronomy is a gateway business, an entry point to generate value for the host population, a driver for social cohesion and integration factor between nationalities.
2. New educational formats
Through our strategic partners in the first edition of CREANDO, we tested new ways of sharing educational content:
The international creative lab “Learning by Helping” was invited to contribute with 7 minute long inspirational segments called “social innovation snacks”. In every snack, they delivered key concepts using creative resources with a casual language and fun vibe and for this reason, after finishing, the snacks were highly valued by participants (with a 9.7/10 rating). So, we reinforced our understanding of the need for an entertaining approach to content, able to also contribute to the participants’ mental health and motivational energy.
Likewise, in a technological experiment, we delivered -in parallel with the CREANDO learning journey- a financial education course by Woccu and Musa via WhatsApp. Through multiple choice questions and interaction with a chatbot, participants were invited to reflect and reach their own conclusions with the agility of casual conversation. As a result, 45% of registered participants in the WhatsApp-based course signed up for a financial product offered by one of Woccu’s partners.
2023 CREANDO
Our first prototype delivered significant insights that we used to design a second version. This year, the 2023 CREANDO edition received a new cohort of participants, with over 2120 participant registrations as well as a renewed community of allied organizations ready to deliver more actionable knowledge and meaningful learning experiences.
Even more exciting, this year we started the co-creation process for the CREANDO Fest, a festival full of inspiration and entrepreneurship with space for culture and art, a fair, and live learning experiences. CREANDO Fest will take place in early 2024.
This initiative started taking shape during our participation in the Crowdfunding Academy organized by the UNDP Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy (BERA) and Alternative Financing Hub.
So far we’ve shared how the first CREANDO journey started and what we learned from it, you can catch up to the first and second entries in this series. Soon we will share the results from our 2023 cohort and all its surprises. Don’t miss it!