"ReinventaPorto" supported more than 200 companies in digital transition

The initial objective was to help 120 small and medium-sized businesses in the city accelerate the transition to the digital economy and respond to the challenges caused by the current crisis. Almost three thousand hours of training later, the "reinventaPorto”, promoted by the Municipality of Porto and the National Association of Young Entrepreneurs (ANJE), trained 204 companies from different sectors, most of them in consulting, commerce/retail and restaurants, but also from areas of health, insurance, and construction.

In the words of the city councilor responsible for Economy, Tourism and Commerce, Ricardo Valente, Porto City Council has the intention "to train people, to support training in this granular logic, with entities that allow this knowledge to quickly transform into something concrete from the business point of view, that transforms organizations and allows the city to regain economic dynamism", since, according to Ricardo Valente, "municipalities should not replace the competencies of economic support of the central Government, but rather complement them".

The "reinventaPorto” program was born, as ANJE president Alexandre Meireles explains, from the "joint effort between the association and the Porto Chamber in designing a project that meets the needs of companies, helping them to optimize their tools and the sales channel”. The official believes that the connection is essential since "it is the municipalities that know the local reality, they are the ones closest to the companies and they are the ones who, better than anyone else, know the socio-economic fabric” of the territory.

The final results of the program reveal that women adhered more than men (56%), 55% of the participants had a bachelor's degree and 20% had a master's degree. More than 93% were very and quite satisfied with what they got from "reinventaPorto”. In response to a survey, 38.4% of respondents revealed that the pandemic has translated into losses of more than 50% in their business.

To this reality, Alexandre Meireles adds more general data that shows that only 26% of Portuguese workers have digital skills and only half of the companies have a digital presence, and, of these, 20% only update content. "Here we have a long way to go in terms of digital training for people, we are just starting to do it”, stresses the head of ANJE, who guarantees that "reinventaPorto” "is not a theoretical thing, it is an objective thing so that people can leaving here more empowered”.

In the same sense, the councilor of the Porto City Council argues that "the response to a crisis like this would have to go through a project like this, betting on people", since the Municipality "does not believe "that the problems are solved by throwing money to above them”.

Stressing the program's impact on the city's business fabric, Ricardo Valente states that "the people who attended the course are, in practice, the people who make the city every day, who create the city's economy, who challenge us every day and one of our great challenges is to regain Porto as an economic center”. "For those who are entrepreneurs in the city, count on us. We are here to be challenged, to support as much as possible”, he concluded.