‘The teams behind the apps’ series: PowerToYEUth
PowerToYEUth aims to tackle youth unemployment
'The teams behind the apps' is a series of videos made by the EU Datathon finalists. Get to know the people and their proposals for apps over nine episodes, once a week, in a run-up to the EU Open Data Days. During this online event in November, the teams will pitch their apps to the jury who will select the winners in the competition finals.
In this final episode you get to meet ‘PowerToYEUth. The team is competing with two other teams in challenge 2: ‘An economy that works for people’.
PowerToYEUth is an application from Portugal that targets small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and aims to tackle youth unemployment. By showing the regions with the high levels of youth unemployment and highlighting the benefits of hiring young people for SMEs, this can be achieved. If you are looking for a job, the application can help you find and make use of EU funds to your advantage and get in touch with start-up incubators in your region.
Nuno Braganca is the creator of PowerToYEUth and he joined us for an interview in which we talked about the app, the idea that led to its creation, and why he decided to participate in the EU Datathon.
How are you doing with the app? What’s the status?
I decided to develop the application using the Vue.js framework, which will allow it to be cross-platform and available on any digital device. After my proposal was accepted as one of the nine finalist ideas, I spent the first months working on product management. I needed to decide how I was going to organise the app. I concluded that if I wanted to make an app for both SMEs and young people, it would have to be in two separate sections, each with its own tabs and information. Since then, I have been building the backend of the application. A major step was figuring out a method for the information to be fed automatically into the app as it is released. This month I am going to finish the overall UI/UX design and the logo. I am listening to people’s feedback to understand which animations and transitions are better suited to the end-user.
How did you come up with the idea for this app?
Since graduating from university, I have been around other graduates and listened to their concerns about being unemployed during the pandemic. I felt the need to create PowerToYEUth because I recently struggled to find funding opportunities to develop my own idea. Once I did my research and discovered how well the EU budget is structured, I concluded that there are some funding opportunities for young people. However, these are never seen by the general public. I believe this is because people are not aware of how EU funding operates and that they have never been taught how to apply for opportunities with the relevant authorities.
With this in mind, I came up with the idea to gather all of this valuable information in an app and present it in a way that is appealing to young users – who are very vulnerable to unemployment, especially amidst the pandemic.
Why did you decide to take part in the EU Datathon?
When I first read about the EU Datathon, I thought it could be an amazing opportunity to help others understand data. I enjoy taking part in data competitions because this allows me to grow as an individual and to expand my skill set. Earlier this year, I was looking for just these types of challenges and was very lucky to come across this opportunity! Over the course of these months, I have learned a great deal and have become even more interested in the EU. I hope that people will see that there is potential for the development of other apps in the open data available on data.europa.eu!
To find out more about PowerToYEUth, watch the 1-minute video.
Curious to learn more? Discover all teams and apps via the EU Datathon website, watch their videos on YouTube, and follow updates on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, or via our newsletter.