Europe has a leaky bucket. We are incredibly good at filling it with talent, producing some of the most technically proficient and ambitious young people in the world. Yet we allow that talent to spill out, either by failing to ignite their entrepreneurial spark or by watching them drain away to more vibrant ecosystems like the US.
This isn’t a hypothetical problem. It’s a reality I’ve seen firsthand, and it explains what the OECD calls the “Missing Entrepreneurs”. This cohort of 812 000 potential young founders accounts for 11% of our total untapped entrepreneurial potential. They are not missing due to a lack of skill, but because the European ecosystem that should support them is fragmented, inaccessible, and disconnected.
The launchpad without a runway
My education is a perfect example of Europe’s strength. I graduated from one of Austria’s Höhere Technische Lehranstalten (HTLs), an intensive five-year program that provides an incredible launchpad. It armed me not just with deep technical skills in informatics, but also with a solid foundation in project management, accounting, and law. It was the perfect toolkit to start building something.
But a launchpad is useless without a runway. When I tried to pursue extracurricular projects in fields like AI, I wasn’t just met with budget restraints, but with a paralysing bureaucratic inertia. The typical response was, “that’s not in the curriculum,” “we don’t have those resources”, “we can’t give you access”, or “we don’t have the budget.” It wasn’t a hard “no,” but a clear signal that the resources weren’t there and, more importantly, no one knew how to make it happen. This lack of encouragement for self-starting is the first leak in the bucket.
After graduation, as I worked to revolutionise European passenger rail with a unified booking platform, I discovered the real void: a near-total absence of platforms connecting young innovators with the policymakers and industry veterans who hold the keys to progress.
I learned this firsthand: walking into partnership or investor meetings as an 18-year-old, even with a working prototype, it was clear most couldn’t see past my age. In a closed-off industry like rail, without established contacts, the only funding options were tiny, early-stage grants or a complex, time-consuming venture capital path.
This is the European paradox: we invest heavily in creating technical experts but fail to build the soft infrastructure – the networks, mentorship, funding, and tailored opportunities – that turns a project into a venture.
The great disconnect
This disconnect between talent and opportunity is where ambition goes to die. The numbers tell a stark story. While 39% of young people in the EU say they would prefer to be self-employed, a mere 7% actually are. This chasm isn’t a coincidence; it’s the result of a missing ecosystem.
This gap isn’t uniform. As the data show, some countries are losing far more of their young entrepreneurs than others. In places like Germany and Sweden, youth self-employment is less than 4%, while in others like Italy and Greece, it’s over 11% – though this can also reflect a lack of traditional employment. The EU-27 average, however, sits at just 6.5% roughly half the rate of the total working-age population.
For a young person with a big idea, the path is bewildering. Where do you find your first mentor? How do you speak to a regulator about a policy that’s holding you back? How do you apply for funding when programs like Horizon Europe have a dauntingly low 15.9% success rate and are designed for large institutions, not nimble startups?
It’s no surprise, then, that many of my most ambitious peers from the HTL saw a clearer path elsewhere. They took their world-class education and founded their companies in the United States, where good access to networks, early-stage funding, and a culture of embracing young innovators is the norm, not the exception. This brain drain is the ultimate cost of our leaky bucket.
Building the runways we need
Fixing this isn’t about reinventing education; it’s about building the connective tissue that’s missing. When young Europeans are asked what support they need most to start a business, their answers are not ambiguous. They don’t just point to one solution; they point to the need for a complete ecosystem.
First, we need deliberate platforms for connection. We need structured, accessible forums where young people can engage directly with policymakers and industry leaders. A great example is Estonia’s e-Residency program, which digitally “opens the door” for anyone, anywhere, to do business. We need this same mindset for connecting our own youth to industry.
Second, we must create opportunities tailored for youth. This means moving beyond one-size-fits-all grants. Germany’s EXIST-Gründerstipendium (Business Start-up Grant) is a model, as it specifically supports students and graduates in turning ideas into prototypes, providing a stipend that acts as a crucial first-round of “financing.”
Finally, we must empower the ecosystem builders. Across Europe, dedicated organisations are already working to cultivate the next generation of changemakers. Policy should seek to scale them, just as Enterprise Ireland acts as a public venture-capital arm, investing in and connecting the country’s most promising startups and university spin-offs.
Taking flight
The “Missing 11%” is more than a statistic. It’s a measure of Europe’s lost potential and a brain drain in progress. The talent is here. The ambition is here. But until we build the runways, the networks, and the open doors, we will continue to watch our best and brightest take flight to destinations beyond our borders.
This leads to a final question for policymakers. Knowing that we are producing world-class young talent only to lose them to better-connected ecosystems, how will we shift from simply funding institutions to actively building the pan-European networks that will make our youth want to stay?
For further reading, take a look at the OECD’s The Missing Entrepreneurs 2023 report. Furthermore, find out about Estonia’s e-Residency program, Germany’s EXIST-Gründerstipendium, Enterprise Ireland.
Adrian Davies is the founder of Meshara, a startup deploying the world's first truly scalable mesh network to connect the 2.6 billion people globally offline. His entrepreneurial journey began in school, where his diploma thesis on centralising European rail travel evolved into his first company, which he ran for two years.
This early experience as a founder solidified his path, leading to a TEDx talk at age 20. Recognising that solving complex global problems requires a multidisciplinary approach, he deliberately complemented his deep computer science background with studies in business law to build a comprehensive founder's toolkit. Today, this unique blend of expertise fuels his work at Meshara. The company is running its first pilot rollouts in countries like Ghana and Cameroon, providing critical connectivity for humanitarian aid, disaster response, and off-grid communities. For over five years, Adrian has also been an active member of global changemaker communities like Moonshot Pirates and Ashoka, championing a new generation of innovators.