Innovation: Senior Entrepreneurs
France
AAI Domains:
Employment (extending working life after)
Independent, healthy and secure living (lifelong learning)
Participation in society (inter-generational activity)
The demographic changes that Europe is facing pose great challenges to the operation of the economy and wider society. The ageing population has potentially profound effects on the sustainability of existing pension arrangements and the health and welfare of people of all ages. Many countries face the prospect of a growing cohort of older people who have become unemployed, retired or retiring soon who have skills and resources to establish a new business, or take over an existing enterprise, and so provide a burst of experienced entrepreneurship that can benefit all generations across society.
Senior Entrepreneurs is a not-for-profit social enterprise that was established in Paris in 2011 by Guy Mariaud with the aim of supporting the creation of new business opportunities across the generations. Senior Entrepreneurs identifies potential business opportunities, older people with a wide range of experience and skills and younger people with ambitions to develop a business or business idea.
Senior Entrepreneurs uses an online platform to match business opportunities with older and younger people and provides coaching and training to foster the development of new businesses. The social enterprise has attracted funding from a wide array of sponsors across the corporate and public sectors and has grown to employ 15 members of staff who provide a range of business support services. There are modest charges for the matching process which is centred on Paris and now also operates in Belgium. Senior Entrepreneurs is looking to use European Union funding to expand into other regions that face similar challenges of ageing populations and the need for entrepreneurial experience and dynamism.
In relation to active ageing, Senior Entrepreneurs is an innovative social enterprise that seeks to mobilise the experience, resources and skills that older people often have and to match them with younger people interested in building up a business opportunity. This has clear potential in relation to extending working lives and is based on the promotion of inter-generational solidarity in economic activity that will have wider social effects. The concept of enabling ‘co-entrepreneurship’ to develop businesses that meet the needs of Europe’s ageing population is potentially innovative and invigorating for economies and societies across the continent.