Entrepreneurship Education is a Human Right

entrepreneurship

education is a human right

a simple statement may be even

provocative but one we

simply can’t afford to ignore with the

future that awaits us

the average human would think of

themselves

as a good person not that i’m calling

any of you average of course

but what if i told you that we are

denying

young children this fundamental right

i’m going to tell you how we’re doing

this and what we can do

differently so that in future we can

look at ourselves

and the younger generation guilt-free

so let me tell you a story about 2008

the year the financial crisis was

wreaking havoc

with businesses worldwide one of them

being my then husband’s technology

business

during that year both his business

and our marriage unraveled and he

struggled with a depression

leaving him unable and unwilling to work

we had just bought a house on the basis

of two salaries and suddenly i was the

only person

employed and then one day

a clash in values with the managing

director

of the company where i worked

led me to walk out with no job in hand

no opportunities no hope

everything suddenly resembled this

vuca world that i’d heard so much about

volatile uncertain complex

and ambiguous at 35

i had to start over in a world that held

no answers

so what did i do i became an

entrepreneur

what gave me the impetus to start

so i’d like to say that i created some

um disruptive technology in my garage

but no that wasn’t it i was just

desperate

i needed to find meaning but i had no

idea

where or how to start

the story of garrett morgan is an

interesting one

nicknamed the black thomas edison

he was born to parents who were former

southern slaves in the u.s in 1877

and as is the case with most ex-slaves

his family was confined to a life of

poverty

so garrett along with 10 of his siblings

were put to work on the fields at the

age of

five he attended a one-room black only

school

um only up to primary level because

there was no high school to go to

so at 14 garrett became a handyman

and he used his earnings to hire a tutor

to enrich his

education at 18 with only 10 cents to

his

name and very few resources he created

his first

invention a belt fastener

over the years through various

experiments

failed and otherwise he created

a few entrepreneurial ventures in

sectors as diverse

as a hair products business and a sewing

machine repair

store his entrepreneurial streak though

led him to huge successes in the safety

sector with traffic lights and

innovating on fire safety hoods

so what i want to focus in on on these

two stories

is how we both dealt with our versions

of the vuca world on the one hand a top

student in school

and university with three degrees in

hand at the time

and many years of work experience on the

other

a child with little formal education

but with a hunger for answers

for all my education and resources

i had not learned how to think

entrepreneurially

and i was of the generation and

community

where the norm was to go to school get

good grades

go to university work and then make your

way up the corporate ladder

it took a year of chaos at 35

to make me comfortable with uncertainty

to unlearn and re-learn

and to find a new way of engaging with

the world

you see i like most of you i would

assume

had learned how to interact with subject

matter

in a specific way with the sage on the

stage

memorizing facts and knowing that to

every

question there was a right answer and a

wrong one

and you needed to get to the right

answer with a set formula

in place my entire identity

was tied into not failing to get to that

right answer

and in that one right way garrett

on the other hand was not boxed in

his thinking by the methods of a formal

school education

his need and drive to find solutions to

the problems he saw

led him to innovate and imagine in

different ways

in ways that i had not been able to

in 1987 the u.s army war college

coined this concept of vuca to describe

the world

that was a consequence of the cold war

since 2019 the coronavirus crisis

has made this vuca world real for us

volatile uncertain complex

and ambiguous so it begs the question

what have we done differently since 1987

to prepare for this vuca world that many

experts predicted was coming

did we teach our children differently

did we provide them with tools to make

them more resilient

did we encourage them to play to

experiment

to try and fail and try again

and to find opportunity in the midst of

chaos

i would venture to say we have not

it is estimated that 85

of the jobs that our learners today will

be doing in 2030

have not yet been invented while there

is some critique of that percentage

what can’t be disputed is the fact that

our world of work

is undergoing massive and unprecedented

change resulting from automation

and artificial intelligence while it is

true

that the jobs created by these

disruptions will exceed those that are

lost

it is not happening quickly enough

there is much to be done

we know that africa will have the

largest

workforce bigger than china or

india by 2035. by current numbers

a third of that will not be productively

engaged or have

access to the economy the political

instability

security risks mass migration and

poverty

of 300 million african

youth who are unemployed is unimaginable

and women suffer the harshest brunt of

all these challenges

so to recap we have a vuca future

that awaits us so some would argue is

here already

we have a significantly changing world

of work

and nature of job we have the largest

workforce

in the world in just 15 years and

rampant unemployment

and our continent still has some of the

highest

levels of poverty and inequality in the

world

obviously our set formulas from the past

are not working or maybe not working

quickly enough

and as has been recently said we are

preparing young people

for a world that no longer exists

so what needs to be done differently

as entrepreneurship has grown in

visibility

and coolness in the last few years

it has been marketed as the panacea for

all

our socio-economic ills my money though

is on developing not just entrepreneurs

who i

strongly believe in but generations of

entrepreneurial thinkers

democratizing this new mindset with

dynamic

young people who will have a different

lens

on the world as the world changes

and and disruptions grow and jobs are

lost it will be the entrepreneurial mind

that will seek

new and innovative ways pivoting to find

new avenues of growth and on unlocking

value in different environments

not just in business but in non-profits

governments

associations and academia

amongst others and so

to like a contagion it will spread

as professor and noted author john

spencer said

not every student will be an

entrepreneur

but they will all someday need to think

like one

so this mindset is needed to address the

challenges faced by

communities countries and continents

it is required and and bulls

competitive advantage it creates

economic access for ourselves

and others and it empowers us with

personal

agency to respond to a chaotic world and

that is why it is a human right

like air water food shelter it is a

basic need for young people

to survive and thrive in a new world

so what does this entrepreneurship

education look like

in my experience these words are used

synonymously with learning how to run

a business in schools it loosely

translates

into a market day but entrepreneurship

education

is much more than that in a study

conducted by the ellen gray orbis

foundation

with a thousand two hundred startup and

established entrepreneurs

it was found that there were fourteen

key mental attributes and competencies

they share these range from a growth

mindset

to opportunity recognition and

assessment

problem solving action orientation

adaptability resilience among others

these competencies need to be used to

identify and nurture

entrepreneurial thinking that’s the

mindset piece

the inspiration the mental agility

then comes a process to uncover a

problem

or opportunity that you care about that

you want to solve

and only after that comes

the solution comes the

a viable feasible sustainable solution

and a venture that backs it up and you

will learn how to register

and run that business you first have to

learn how to imagine

and innovate before you can implement

so how does one democratize

entrepreneurship

education i have three key

insights here firstly we need to treat

it

with the urgency it deserves as

a mission a movement for change as the

chinese wisdom goes

the best time to plant a tree was 20

years ago

the second best time is now

secondly we need to invest in

identifying and developing

entrepreneurial potential in young

people over the long term

this is not a quick fix entrepreneurship

education needs to enter the mainstream

schooling

and tertiary environment and it needs to

become a cross-cutting thread

in teaching and learning the third part

is about democratization being an act

that creates accessibility for all

so our children everywhere in cities

townships small towns rural areas

need to be given access to this kind of

education

through fun practical and relatable

activities

entrepreneurship education will be the

great equalizer

the emphasis needs to be on nurturing

a hunger for exploration for problem

solving and opportunity finding

rather than creating mental straight

jackets

problem solving you see is like gym for

the brain

and the more that you train it like with

any other muscle

the more efficient it will become the

quicker

the better it will be able to adapt and

respond and

thirdly we need to create a culture of

entrepreneurship

and entrepreneurial thinking in our

schools

in our offices and in our homes

we need to put the spotlight on

entrepreneurial

change makers as role models we need to

hear their stories

and embrace failure so that risk is

demystified

and is embraced rather than scorned at

we have worked with two young leaders um

and and they are just amazing impressive

entrepreneurs deneo and daniel were

awarded scholarships

um to do their university study

and and through their work in the

scholarship they

received entrepreneurship education

training and support

this is where they learned that

entrepreneurship can be used for the

common good

it sparked interest in them and they

found a mutual

interest in wanting to advance the

african biotech

sector so they came together to create

an entrepreneurial venture that focuses

on genomics and diagnostics and when the

covert 19 pandemic hit

these young entrepreneurs knew that they

wanted to contribute to south africa’s

response

and they developed locally produced

rapid testing kits we want to create

millions of dineos daniels

and garrett’s and it is up to us

as the adults of the day parents

teachers and concerned citizens to

create the tipping point

for this change imagine the different

worlds we could create if we were

intentional

about ensuring that every child every

african child

as early as five years old were given

access

along with their other basic rights to

entrepreneurship education

they would be unafraid to enter that

workforce

of 2035 because they would be equipped

well

they would be dreamers opportunity

seekers

critical thinkers curious agile

and resilient that entrepreneurial

spirit that we admire in steve

jobs richard mapania basitsana kumalo

and rapalang rabbana would not be the

exception

and when these young people are faced

with a year of chaos

as i was or another 2020

they would be armed and confident

to forge ahead in new and different ways

the alternative

is a future that looks much the same as

the present

except with deeper fractures and even

larger population and an even

more perilous climate as the saying goes

nothing changes if nothing changes

if we ignore the risks and the urgency

and we continue on the same trajectory

we are denying we are refusing

our children the fundamental right to be

best prepared

for a future that we as the adults of

today

and all the adults that came before us

created

and that they now need to survive and

hopefully thrive within

can we live with having denied them that

rights

thank you very much