Last week, Global Entrepreneurship Network released the results of a survey of young African entrepreneurs and one of the biggest demands was for entrepreneurship education and training opportunities. That demand isn't confined to Africa.
Turning hard problems into big opportunities
As entrepreneurship is gaining popularity among younger generations the need for high quality entrepreneurship education is rising. Starting a business is both fun and exciting but at the same time it can be extremely hard and complex. Many first-time founders get discouraged when looking at the survival rates of new startups, and fear the societal pressures of what might happen if they fail. This is where mentors and educators can help by enabling the founders to regain their self-confidence and providing them with tangible tools to overcome the typical barriers.
Although it may be intimidating, the entrepreneurial drive is there and waiting to be unleashed. Given the chance, a surprisingly large number of young people are eager to test their entrepreneurial capabilities in a 2-day adventure as a startup founder. Startup Experience leads students and first-time entrepreneurs through an ultra intensive workshop where they build creative confidence and learn powerful techniques to turn any social problem into a new startup opportunity.
The Entrepreneurial Mindset
The goal with entrepreneurship education isn’t to get everyone to become founders; it is simply to make students effective innovators in whatever context they chose to work.
Having an entrepreneurial mindset is key in all aspects of life, at all levels of society and in all places around the world. Creativity, adaptability, persistence, communication, leadership, and strategic thinking are just a few of the skills that get developed through the entrepreneurial process. It is as much about enabling young people to believe in themselves as it is about creating new revolutionary product ideas.
The traditional school system doesn’t provide much room for experimentation or failure, so when students are allowed to spend two full days working on a problem that they are passionate about solving, all the creative energy is unleashed and anything can happen.
The Startup Experience
Students find teammates with complementary skills and define a problem they want to solve. They then go through a hands-on workshop where they learn about tech trends, Design Thinking, LEAN Startup and pitching, and apply their newly acquired skills to develop and test a new startup idea that can solve the problem they defined in the beginning.
This proven methodology from Silicon Valley has been used to target all types of complex problems and many teams have continued working on their ideas and built real viable for-profit social enterprises. In partnership with GEN, Startup Experience is sending experienced entrepreneurs from San Francisco to run programs in 20+ countries around the world and has provided entrepreneurship training to more than 5000 entrepreneurs, students and faculty.
Startup Experience continues to run programs for students around the world and is soon launching a new online community for likeminded entrepreneurship educators to share best practices in entrepreneurship and ensure the highest quality training for all future entrepreneurs.
Startup Experience is always open to new partnerships; learn more about how to bring the program to your community at: www.startupexperience.com / mail@startupxp.com
Guest article by Henrik Scheel, founder and CEO of Startup Experience, Inc.
Image credit: Jacqueline Spaans Fotografie