COGITO Talks… Youth entrepreneurs uncovered: Dare to dream – YEPA panel special

Blurb

Recent OECD data shows that less than 40% of young people aged 18 to 30 feel they have the skills and experience needed to start a business. In today’s episode, you’ll not only hear inspiring stories about young people who have turned their entrepreneurial dreams into realities, but we will discuss how youth entrepreneurship policies are helping bridge the skill and experience gap.  

Recorded during the youth entrepreneurship policy academy (YEPA) Summit in Brussels, this session captures YEPA’s mission through an inspiring panel of three young entrepreneurs who share their journeys – including the highs, hurdles, and lessons learned. The discussion is moderated by Baptiste Mandouze, Social Economy Policy Officer at the European Commission, and features Adrian Davies, Elina Cohen-Periano, and Mateo de Bardeci. Let’s dive in and hear their stories. 

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Transcript

Host 

Welcome to OECD podcast; where policy meets people. Recent OECD data shows that less than 40% of young people aged 18 to 30 feel they have the skills and experience needed to start a business. In today’s episode, you’ll hear how youth entrepreneurship policies are helping bridge that gap and what decision-makers need to know to better support the next generation of innovators. 

I’m Tara O’Neill, and today we’re bringing you a special episode recorded during the youth entrepreneurship policy academy (YEPA) Summit in Brussels. This session captures YEPA’s mission through an inspiring panel of three young entrepreneurs who share their journeys – including the highs, hurdles, and lessons learned. The discussion is moderated by Baptiste Mandouze, Social Economy Policy Officer at the European Commission. Let’s dive in and hear their stories. 

Baptiste 

Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. I’m really happy to be here. And I would like you to give a warm welcome to our three panelists. We have Adrian, founder of the Meshara company. Welcome. We’ve got Elina also, CEO and founder of Urone. And finally, Mateo, CEO and co-founder from DeepPsy. Can you take a few minutes and present a little bit your business and what it’s all about? Okay, maybe let’s start with Adrian first. Thank you.  

Adrian 

Okay. Well, first of all, thank you for having me.  I’m Adrian, I’m 22, I study law in Vienna, but I am here today is because I founded Meshara. What is Meshara? Let’s start maybe with the problem first: a third of the global population does not have internet, they are offline. That is because local infrastructure just isn’t available and alternative solutions such as satellite internet, for example, are still very expensive or too centralised or simply not scalable. With Meshara, we try to tackle this. We build digital infrastructure for regions that simply don’t have it right now and we achieve this by creating the first truly scalable mesh network.  

This means that essentially, imagine the router that you have at home, but this router can be placed anywhere; so, a mountain, the forest, the desert or simply your roof. And this router can then connect to other routers within and up to a 15km radius. And they can talk to each other and therefore establish a network or a communication link in under three minutes. The system can run fully autonomously, so you don’t need any infrastructure in the area, be that power or communication infrastructure. So, it’s completely off grid and designed as an intranet, or it can fully connect to all infrastructure that’s already there.  

So, from power to internet connectivity, and therefore serve as an uplink to the internet. This enables all kinds of communities to deliver education, to deliver healthcare, to deliver emergency services, and be fully resilient even in the worst possible conditions; for example, a blackout. Not only do we roll this out right now for example, in Cameroon and Ghana, but we’re also aiming to do a European network where, for example, governments can have a backup infrastructure for their resilient institutions or necessary institutions, or for example, for private businesses that are looking to scale their communication networks off grid or for example, simply for IoT networks. So yeah, that’s me.  

Baptiste  

Wow. That’s really impressive and after spending three years working in Ghana, no doubt that you’re changing the world. Elina.  

Elina 

Hi. My name is Elina Cohen-Periano. I’m very glad to be here and to see so many people merging towards youth entrepreneurship. So, I’m 25 years old. I started being an entrepreneur when I was 17; I launched a charity to help young migrants reinsert socially and professionally in France. Then I’ve also started a project in Latin America – it was more in in the tech field to create a new product in the equestrian market. So, I’m from business school, but I’ve also entered the engineering side also to explore more ways of becoming an entrepreneur, even in tech.  

And then when I came back to France in 2022, while I was doing my master, I actually realised there were a lot of student entrepreneurs that were trying to develop their products to raise, to grow. But I did realise that in education, in higher education, there were still a lot of things lacking to help those student entrepreneurs. So, what I’ve experienced is that sometimes youth considerations for entrepreneurship are not that huge. So, they are seen not as people that are making things or driving change, but of people doing something outside class. And that’s sometimes not the focus some professors or some schools that do value.  

However, I’ve seen so much energy in young people, amazing projects, and people really driving change in so many industries. And so, I really told myself, I want to help those young people. I’ve experienced this life as a student entrepreneur and that’s how I created Urone. So basically, Urone is working in higher education and in public institutions to drive change and empowering young entrepreneurs. So, we work with schools to design new programmes, new academic and also student life to boost youth entrepreneurship and to help them also succeed after their classes.  

But what I’ve also seen in my country and also in Europe, is that there are a lot of things that do exist for young people, but sometimes either they are not known by young people or they are really spread around. And I do think we really need to focus on what we offer to young people with the work we did with the YEPA legacy on different parts that young people need. So I really, really want to engage in just societal change as, as we have seen now, because I do think young people need support. And I do think young people are really, really smart and can help a lot. So I’m really happy. And thank you everyone that you also share this mindset and we are all contributing to youth entrepreneurship policy making.  

Baptiste  

Well, thanks a lot. Round of applause. Yeah, well I think we all do believe that the young generation is much smarter than the older one. Maybe let’s go to you Mateo, you’re the CEO and co-founder of DeepPsy. Please, let’s present your business.  

Mateo 

What we do is we help psychiatrists find the best treatment for patients with depression. And we do that by analysing brain data from the electroencephalogram and the electrocardiogram. And we have markers and patterns that have a correlation with the efficacy of certain treatments. And these are treatments mainly that have an influence on the biochemistry of the brain; meaning for example, antidepressants and also some other interventions.  

And what we do is we analyse the brain data, and we give the psychiatrists or the treating physicians a report like a lab sheet that they can use to optimise their treatment decisions. And we are a Swiss company, and we are now active in Switzerland. We are delivering every month dozens of reports, and we are also active now in some other clinics, also in Toronto and in Abu Dhabi. And we are expanding now, or at least aiming to expand.  

Baptiste  

Yeah, thanks a lot. I think you’re following, all of you, the YEPA, since the very beginning. We do hope that by Switzerland being surrounded by EU countries, you will step in also in the EU in the coming months or in the coming years.  

Mateo 

That’s the plan.  

Baptiste 

Yes, that’s the plan. That’s a good plan. So, as I say, I’m not an entrepreneur and I’m more into to the policy. When I listen to you, for instance, I could have imagined that you could have moved to a big tech company. Or you could have like being a civil servant, trying to connect youth with the needed resource. Or Mateo, you could have been a researcher working for a hospital. But why did you choose the tough  – because I think it’s tough – and challenging paths of becoming an entrepreneur? Maybe, Elina.  

Elina 

I think I would say to drive change. Throughout my short career doing internships, I’ve noticed that there were a lot of people struggling or that needed help. But I also felt that if I really want to help people and really drive change, it needs to come from a business I’m building, from a team I’m constructing because I would have the liberty to act, to work on themes and impact that I want to drive with other people. So that’s mainly something that also came from seeing how the jobs currently work or what’s the opportunity for young people.  

I would also say, and that’s really important, I think sometimes we are entrepreneurs without knowing it. Actually, when I started with the charity when I was 17, it was just doing an Enactus competition; so, a charity that helps towards social entrepreneurship. And I told myself, okay, I see young people in the street in the north of France. I don’t understand why I see a lot of migrants and I want to change that and I want to help them. And so, then I’ve partnered with the students, and we’ve started and built this charity. But I was not telling myself, oh my God, wow, I’m an entrepreneur. I’m doing that. I just want to solve this problem, and I want to have an impact. So that’s how it all started.  

And to be honest, I’ve realised I was an entrepreneur in 2023 so kind of late. So, it was like six years after starting and so basically what I do want to encourage is that entrepreneurship is to identify a problem, to have ideas of solution, and then to take action. And I think if we see entrepreneurship that way, it will allow more people to become entrepreneurs, even within companies with entrepreneurship. So, I think that’s the angle I would like to take. And also, I do feel that young people really want to engage and are not working to work anymore. And I think that’s not only for young people, that’s for ex-young people or every person, every age.  

So, I do think entrepreneurship allows people to have an impact. They allow themselves also to go to places in which I think if I would never have been an entrepreneur, I would never have been sitting here with you today. I would never have understood that if I want to do something, I just can do it and I can thrive with other people and reach some goals I didn’t even think about. So I think that also entrepreneurship drives you to places and things that you had never imagined being possible at our age. So it’s a really good way to go out of the standards and to just try. And that’s also risky and that’s also very hard. Like the entrepreneurship path is obviously hard, but it really allows you to go to places where you’ve never seen and also to drive a huge impact I think that we would not have considered.  

Baptiste 

Thanks a lot. I really like to say that you, you were an entrepreneur without knowing it. And I think it’s the case of many, many people here. What about you? How did you become, a young entrepreneur?  

Adrian 

Well, my entrepreneurial journey started in school, actually. So, in Austria, there’s a system for higher technical education called – it’s called the HTL Higher Technical school essentially, which prepares you in the years before your A-levels. So, before your mature in Austria and next to the general education, it also provides you with a lot of technical skills.  

So, in my case that was high informatics, and you learned everything from software engineering, database management all the way to accounting and project management. And as part of this education, you had to do a diploma thesis and a diploma project. So essentially a technical project that showed you are able to not only talk-the-talk but walk-the-walk, basically.  

And our research project back then that I did with some friends was about how can you kind of overhaul the European railway industry? How can you connect the different booking and planning systems that the EU is using? So DB, planner, OBB and so on, like everyone has their own system and that’s kind of a mess – I’m not going to lie about that. Back then I honestly just wanted a good grade.  

I didn’t really think I had the skills or the contacts or anything to become an entrepreneur and my friends thought the same way – we wanted a good grade. But the supervising teacher for our project was an entrepreneur before, and he heavily, heavily encouraged us to take this project further and really show the world what we can do to build something out of this seemingly random school project.  

He introduced us to Moonshot Pirates, which is also why I’m here today, because they’re a YEPA member. And since then, it’s been almost five years since I’ve been in this entrepreneurial community, and Moonshot Pirates has shown me what possibilities are out there. They’ve introduced me to a global network of other entrepreneurs, of other change makers that are building something, that want to change something. And they’ve also introduced me to a wide range of experts all around the globe that have helped me over the past few years to really become the person I am today and try to change something in the world.  

Baptiste 

Thank you. Maybe, Mateo, your journey. How did you become an entrepreneur?  

Mateo 

In 2020 I met my co-founder and he told me about this technology, this this way of analysing the brain with EEG and the new evidence. And I found it very interesting and he wanted to bring it to the normal clinics because it was being used in a specific clinic in the university hospital. But we wanted to bring it to the broader section and the other clinics also. And I said, okay, how hard can it be?  

Okay. You know, I know how to program, probably in a couple of months, you know, we can launch it – this was in my brain more or less. But our goal was always that this technology to be adopted in the broader clinics and by other people as well. And we became entrepreneurs in order to fulfil that goal. We didn’t necessarily want to be entrepreneurs, but we said, hey, okay, we need to bring this technology. We want to be part of this revolution in psychiatry and a way to do that ended-up being an entrepreneur and founding the company.  

Baptiste 

Wow. That’s brilliant. So, I took notes for later. Programming the physics of the brain is not that complicated. That’s okay. I’ll tell this to my son later. But what I see also is that yes, if I slowly start to learn about ChatGPT, I believe you are the kings and queens of technology and innovation. So I’d like to know quickly, maybe in a few sentences, how you see those changes. And those changes are going really, really fast. I mean, we move from GPT 3 to GPT 5 Pro. So maybe for you, you’re going much faster because from the top of a mountain you have a router you say that goes like 15km around the matrix.  

Adrian 

Thank you. So, for me, I’m going to start with a general kind of overview of how I think technology changed entrepreneurship and youth entrepreneurship. As you probably all know, the rise of AI has deeply changed basically every business model. Today, a team of two founders basically has the strength of ten developers or something in their hands. Not only with AI chatbots, but AI agents, development environments and so on. You have a cadence of development that is far, far, far faster than anything we’ve ever seen before, and also the capabilities of each and every one of us, even if you’re not an expert in finance, for example, you’re quite easily able to generate a financial model.  

Other kinds of business models do research in all kinds of environments, and this basically applies to every industry in at least some way. For us specifically, we also operate in a quite regulated environment. Telco is quite a restricted industry and I think that’s a good thing also. But it’s very hard to get into as a young founder essentially.  

So, before we ever started building our physical devices, our nodes, we actually built a full simulation suite on everything, radio communications, on the physics of how radio waves transmit and for example, how terrain affects our capabilities. And we’ve gone from this completely virtual environment, thousands of tests to creating something that actually applied to the real world and that we could then build. And now we have functional hardware that basically originated from just virtual tests that we started as a kind of feasibility study.  

So, I think for heavily regulated industries this is kind of a game changer because the required capital to start, or at least think about what to do, is much, much less. Essentially, you just need a PC and some kind of AI chatbot to do the research. It wasn’t that easy, but we’ll simplify it for now. And I think this is going to be a huge change in a lot of the very regulated industries, be that telco or health or many other industries.  

Baptiste  

Just on what you say, like the ways to use is conceptualising, education is radically changing. And for me, this echo to again, what was said about the need to invest in skills and entrepreneurship is one of the needed skills. And so, we have in the EU just set the new commission, the union job skills. And we do believe that it will be one of the ways to reinvent the way we want to have the young people developing their competencies and skills.  

So maybe we’re going to do a last round of questions where I’m going to ask you quickly, what was the biggest challenge you faced and how? Obviously, one of the many you overcome it and to which extent this leads you to one key message you would like to share to the policymakers you have here.  

Elina 

I would maybe say the biggest challenge is maybe youth representation and youth consideration. It’s really hard to see young people’s success stories. I mean, mainly when we hear about entrepreneurship, we hear about Elon Musk and those big companies. And it’s really hard to see young people that are actually doing crazy things.  

Adrian 

I would say connecting and building platforms for entrepreneurs, business professionals, policymakers, and everyone to come together and speak internationally. Really, because I faced, especially when I first started out, a big challenge of people not really seeing the credibility in young people entering especially regulated industries because we might not have the policy knowledge and so on. But I think we do still have valid points and should discuss them.  

Baptiste 

Well, thanks a lot. I think we’ve been really lucky to share this moment with you. So I’d like a big round of applause to our three panelists.  

Host 

Thanks so much to all our young entrepreneurs and for tuning in to this episode. We hope you learned something new and walk away feeling inspired by these entrepreneurs’ journeys. For more on this topic, you can visit our website, oecd.org/CFE, as well as the YEPA hub, yepa-hub.org. Until next time, I’m Tara O’Neill, and this has been an OECD podcast. 

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To learn more, visit the YEPA hub. Find out about the OECD’s work on inclusive entrepreneurship and the Missing Entrepreneurs 2023 Report.