GEN Global Assembly Workshop: Campaigns that Inspire New Entrepreneurs (Group 2)

Session Description

The world needs more entrepreneurs.  We need more people forming teams, testing ideas and getting started.  

We have plenty of accelerators, educational academies, startup community activities, new AI platforms, mentors, investor communities and entrepreneurial support organizations.  What the ecosystem needs is more customers – more people to help in our communities.

The global brainstorm will discuss your ideas for inspiring more citizens in our economies to explore entrepreneurship somewhere in their career path.  Discussion questions include:

• What could a global communications campaign to reach more ordinary citizens look like in 2026?
• What personal goals and values can entrepreneurship appeal to?
• What words work best in inspiring more people to dream and take a risk on an idea as a builder?
• What are the narratives that appeal to newcomers to entrepreneurship?
• How to you tell stories and what stories matter?
• Who are the right role models to inspire and reinforce the message that it can be done by anyone driven to try?
• What do you need to help more people join our communities of enablers supporting nascent entrepreneurs?
• How do we make it sustainable for our governments and institutions to financially support?
• How can we build on models to date like Global Entrepreneurship Week?

Following a lunch break, this theme will conclude with a workshop on understanding the entrepreneurial mindset.

About the GEN Global Assembly

The GEN Global Assembly (GGA) brings together diverse experts and practitioners from around the world to brainstorm strategies and learn skills for strengthening the global entrepreneurial ecosystem. To kick off the GEC, the immersive GGA workshops will provide the tools and insights to help us build thriving entrepreneurial ecosystems together around the 2025 themes, including "The World Needs More Entrepreneurs."

The World Needs More Entrepreneurs

The world needs more individuals experimenting, launching, and scaling ventures. This track will focus on how to inspire more people to take this path, thereby increasing the number of people using entrepreneurial support organizations (ESOs) and getting started. 

Session Recap

(AI-generated session recap made available by Google NotebookLM)

Ready to ignite the spark? This dynamic workshop at GEC 2025, led by Ollie Barrett and featuring insights from GEN co-founder Mark Maritch, broke from the traditional format to immerse attendees in collaborative brainstorming and shared learning. Focused entirely on the vital challenge of inspiring the next generation of entrepreneurs, the session was designed to foster direct connections and harvest hard-won insights from experienced ecosystem builders around the globe. Attendees shared bold personal and professional ambitions, distilled lessons from campaigns that worked (and some that didn't), and creatively designed new approaches using a simple yet powerful formula. This recap captures the energy and actionable insights from this engaging session.

Session Outline:

• Connector Engine: Setting the stage with an interactive icebreaker. Attendees shared their boldest personal or professional ambitions with someone new.
• Sharing Bold Ambitions Heard: Attendees shared inspiring or surprising ambitions heard during the icebreaker.
• Insight Engine: Deep dive into lessons learned from inspiring entrepreneurs.
• Discussing what worked, what didn't work, and surprising insights.
• Examining the balance between instinct/talent and learning/market research.The critical role of access and mentorship.
• Meeting people where they are: importance of physical spaces and tailored messages.
• Innovative approaches like providing resources or salary support.
• Using "Exhibition to Enterprise" models and leading with impact.
• Making "entrepreneurship" less intimidating through accessible language and focusing on attributes.
• Lessons from challenges like difficult partnerships or "me too" businesses.
• Discovering "words that work" to draw people in.
• Strategies for talking about and reframing failure.
• Creative Engine: Brainstorming bold campaign ideas using the A+B doing C formula.
• Sharing diverse campaign concepts developed by attendees.
• Final Reflection: A moment for attendees to consider their key takeaways.

Notable Quotes:

• "We're deliberately not having a plenary... We're having workshops so you get to meet each other".
• "...how the program changed how they felt about themselves. That was the standout insight".
• "The word itself, entrepreneurship, I think intimidates a lot of people...".
• "...it's not about success or failure. It's about the process and it's about execution".
• "We want to take what you're kind of coming up with today. We want to infuse that in our own work, but we also want you to share that information with everybody else in the audience so that way you can take it home, too".

Key Takeaways:

• Ignite Self-Belief, Not Just Business: Inspiring new entrepreneurs is fundamentally about transforming how potential founders feel about themselves and their capabilities. Campaigns should focus on building confidence and self-worth, often prioritizing this over immediate financial outcomes.
• Make "Entrepreneurship" Approachable: The term "entrepreneurship" can be a barrier. Use accessible language focusing on relatable concepts like control, agency, solving problems, creating change, or building community. Meeting people in familiar, non-intimidating physical spaces is crucial.
• Embrace and Reframe Failure: Silence around challenges or failures is detrimental. Successful campaigns acknowledge that hurdles and missteps are part of the entrepreneurial journey. Sharing stories of "intelligent failure", using program names like "Fail Forward", or even humorously discussing "dead startups” can normalize learning from mistakes. Focus on the process and execution rather than just winning or losing.
• Connection Cuts Through Noise: In an age of digital overload, direct, in-person interaction is incredibly powerful for building trust and providing the grounding connection that aspiring founders need. Events, workshops, and physical spaces act as vital access points and community builders.
• Creative Formulas Spark Action (A+B=C): Bold campaign concepts can be generated by identifying two distinct entities (A and B) and defining a concrete action (C) they perform together to foster entrepreneurial inspiration. This formula encourages thinking about unexpected combinations, such as artists collaborating with businesses or prisoners pairing with ex-offender entrepreneurs.

Resources Mentioned:

• Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW)
• Speed Network the Globe (GEW activity)
• Startup Britain
• UK's largest schools entrepreneurship challenge
• Fiverr (UK primary school campaign)
• Startup Zoo (Kalamazoo, Michigan)
• Sycamore Innovation Lab at Indiana State University
• Wizdiary.com (Email marketing platform)
• Southshore team of comers (Chicago)
• The Rebel School (UK & Latin America)
• Economic growth strategies (Consulting firm)
• Fail Forward (Program name)
• The Right Kind of Wrong by Amy Edmonson (Book)
• Institute of Law Economics in Jamaica
• The F****** Nights (Event format)
• Dead Startup Society (New Zealand concept)
• Center for Entrepreneurs (UK)
• Arizona State University
• Cop group (Social entrepreneur organization in Togo)
• Iron Works (Incubator/Accelerator in Gary, Indiana)
• Junior Achievement (US)
• Utopia Modern Salon Suites (Franchise model)
• Growup Series (Chicago event series)
• Ecosystem Builders in Transition (Event name)
• Jeff Hoffman (Keynote speaker)
• Dr. Jessica Houston (Keynote speaker)
• International Venture Academy (Cross-border event)
• Primeense (Israeli tech company)
• eToro (Israeli tech company)
• Wigs (Israeli tech company)
• Walking Fridays (Israeli concept)

Action Items:

• Attendees were encouraged to distill their own insights on inspiring entrepreneurs.
• Participants brainstormed new campaign ideas using the A+B doing C formula.
• The call was made for attendees to take what they learned and infuse it into their own work and organizations.
• Attendees were encouraged to share the value of the session with fellow guests or colleagues.
• A second instance of the session was scheduled, inviting participants to attend again or recommend it to others