‘The teams behind the apps’ series: PowerToYEUth
'The teams behind the apps' is a series of videos made by
the EU Datathon
[https://data.europa.eu/en/news/op.europa.eu/eudatathon] 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
[https://op.europa.eu/en/web/euopendatadays]. 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
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/nuno-bragan%C3%A7a-29824813b/] 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
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8tnwCZUf8g]. 

Curious to learn more? Discover all teams and apps via
the EU Datathon website
[https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eudatathon], watch their videos on
YouTube
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT5rARDev_rnik8jF6E8k5AjN5zeJmqXG],
and follow updates on Twitter
[https://twitter.com/EU_opendata], LinkedIn
[https://www.linkedin.com/company/data-europa-eu], and Facebook
[https://www.facebook.com/data.europa.eu], or via our newsletter
[https://data.europa.eu/en/newsletter]. 

Publication Date/Time
2021-11-12T10:00:00+00:00
PowerToYEUth aims to tackle youth unemployment