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A young person who can build a website or a mobile application, document code professionally and present a business idea has a route into work that does not depend on where they live or which community they belong to. Between 2018 and 2022 ECMI Kosovo established two Youth Digital Entrepreneurship Academies, first across the Kosovo–Albania border with the Albanian Institute for International Studies, then for young people from non-majority communities in Kosovo, and handed their training materials to vocational schools.
An academy across the border (2018–2020)
The first academy, Fostering Youth Development and Employment through a Cross-Border Digital Entrepreneurship Academy in Lezha and Prizren, ran from March 2018 to September 2020 with EU funding under the Albania–Kosovo cross-border programme, led by ECMI Kosovo with AIIS in Albania. It began with research into what local businesses in Prizren and Lezha needed and where the vocational schools’ curricula fell short; experts then built a four-module programme — front-end development, back-end development, Android app development and business management — and trained the IT teachers of the Technical High School "11 Marsi" in Prizren and the vocational school "Kolin Gjoka" in Lezha to teach it.
A call in January 2019 drew 114 applications; 56 young people were selected, 30 from Prizren and 26 from Lezha, with young women and members of non-majority communities encouraged to apply. Fifty-five completed eighty training sessions, forty in each town, sat three examinations, received laptops for their project work and produced short video presentations of themselves for employers. Two joint classes brought the Prizren and Lezha students together, and the two schools’ directors visited each other.
The pandemic forced the final conference of 14 September 2020 into a hybrid format. When ECMI and AIIS followed up, 27 participants had found internships or jobs, two of them across the border, and more than 65 per cent had used their YDEA certificate in job applications. The YDEA manual containing the four modules was shared with both schools and with other high schools in Prizren and Lezha.
A second academy for non-majority youth (2021–2022)
With UNMIK’s support, ECMI ran a YDEA programme from December 2021 to June 2022 for young people from non-majority communities in the Prishtina and Gjilan regions. After a market-needs assessment and information sessions in Ranillug/Ranilug and Gračanica/Graçanicë, twenty participants were selected from 31 applicants, ten from each region; 55 per cent were young women and all were from non-majority communities.
Twelve sessions covered IT essentials, networking and cloud computing, sensors and the Internet of Things, data analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence and network security, with hands-on practice. All twenty completed the course and received their certificates at an event in Ranillug. The lectures and materials became a second YDEA manual, shared with vocational schools and intended for free public access.
What the academies showed
Market research before curriculum design, teachers trained alongside students, equipment that students keep, and a follow-up on employment rather than on attendance: these are the elements ECMI carries into its current work on livelihoods and employability, where the same follow-up approach is used.
Programme support
Fostering Youth Development and Employment through a Cross-Border Digital Entrepreneurship Academy (Y.D.E.A.) in Lezha and Prizren, 2018–2020, funded by the European Union under the IPA Cross-Border Programme Albania–Kosovo, implemented by ECMI Kosovo with the Albanian Institute for International Studies. Youth Digital Entrepreneurship Academy, December 2021–June 2022, supported by UNMIK.