VIRTUAL REALITY FOR STEM ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRAINING

Youth entrepreneurship is vital for creating employment and sustainable growth and has become a priority in the EU policy agenda, as a tool to combat unemployment and social exclusion as well as to stimulate innovation among young people. According to Eurostat, the youth unemployment rates are much higher than unemployment rates for all other ages. Particularly, unemployment rate among young people (18-24 years old) in March 2015 in Slovakia reached 26,5 %, in Romania 21,7% and in Greece 49,8%. Besides the high unemployment rates, not only in mentioned countries, but also in many EU Member States, there is also evidence of shortage of skills in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields. This paper presents the VR4STEM (Virtual Reality for STEM Entrepreneurship Training) project, which aims to assist young people to gain entrepreneurship skill in STEM domain and the related ICT industry. The project's main aim is to offer an educational environment for teaching/learning STEM entrepreneurship aspects that will use advanced ICT-based educational methods, like 3D virtual reality based ones. This will lead to more attractive ways of teaching, through the Virtual 3D World that will be developed, and hence to more effective ICT-based teaching and training. The VR4STEM project will offer to young people the chance to improve understanding and skills on STEM entrepreneurship, through the use of augmented technologies and will contribute in improving the quality of learning.