Last month, RESCHIP4EU joined more than 1,200 young people from over 40 countries at GEN-E 2026, JA Europe’s flagship youth entrepreneurship festival and one of the largest events of its kind in Europe.
Held from 7 to 10 July 2026, GEN-E brought together young people from across Europe to present their ideas, develop their entrepreneurial skills, and connect with peers and professionals. National winning teams from upper secondary schools joined university-level student start-ups selected through competitions across Europe, creating an international meeting point for emerging talent, entrepreneurship, and innovation.
A month later, we are looking back at the event and the opportunity it provided to bring chip design and STEM pathways into this wider conversation about young people’s ideas and future careers.
Bringing Chip Design to GEN-E
Together with consortium partner Junior Achievement Europe, Romane Léauté represented RESCHIP4EU on site with a dedicated project booth.
The project’s presence focused on promoting chip design and encouraging young people to consider STEM studies. This placed semiconductor education directly in front of an audience already interested in innovation, entrepreneurship, and developing new ideas.
The event itself included pitching and awards activities. Following an opening dinner and awards ceremony celebrating projects developed by younger students, university-level entrepreneurs took to the stage to present their ideas.
Connecting Emerging Talent with Semiconductor Education
Semiconductors and embedded systems underpin technologies used across numerous areas of modern life, yet the engineering and expertise behind them can remain largely invisible to people outside the field.
Reaching young people while they are exploring study options and future careers is therefore an important part of raising awareness of the opportunities available within chip design and related STEM disciplines.
GEN-E provided a particularly relevant environment for this conversation. Participants were already engaging with problem-solving, entrepreneurship, innovation, and the process of turning ideas into practical concepts. Introducing chip design within this setting helps broaden the range of technical and educational pathways young people encounter as they consider where their interests could take them.
This connection between education and future talent is also central to RESCHIP4EU, which works to strengthen advanced skills in chip design and embedded systems and contribute to Europe’s semiconductor skills base.
Looking Back at GEN-E 2026
For RESCHIP4EU, GEN-E offered an opportunity to increase the visibility of semiconductor education among more than 1,200 young participants representing over 40 countries.
It also demonstrated the value of bringing technical fields into spaces where young people are already discussing innovation and entrepreneurship. Chip design may be highly specialised, but the ideas, systems, and technologies it enables are closely connected to many of the challenges and opportunities that the next generation of entrepreneurs will encounter.
As partners, Evolutionary Archetypes Consulting SL and 28DIGITAL are pleased to look back at the project’s presence at GEN-E 2026 and its engagement with young people from across Europe.
🎥 Watch the event video to see some of the moments from RESCHIP4EU at GEN-E 2026.
Learn more about RESCHIP4EU: https://28digital.eu/eu-collaborations/reschip4eu
Project Number: 101158828 — RESCHIP4EU — DIGITAL-2023-SKILLS-04
Disclaimer: Co-Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or HADEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
