It has been a big week for entrepreneurship in Indonesia. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Bali on July 21 to take part in an ASEAN Regional Entrepreneurship Summit (RES) held by the Ministry of Trade of the Republic of Indonesia and the Global Entrepreneurship Program Indonesia (GEPI). The theme of the 3-day RES was: “Emerging Entrepreneurs: The Next Big Chapter.”
I hope that like me, you have had the chance to witness the burgeoning phenomenon of entrepreneurship curriculum in American higher education. More and more, students have the opportunity to explore entrepreneurship on campus. In the process of creating entrepreneurship programs, universities have become more entrepreneurial themselves. This is great news. Colleges and universities are natural incubators of creativity and new ways of looking at things. And this new reality might mean that colleges and universities are better preparing students for success in the American economy where more professionals need to make their own jobs.
As my previous posts on this blog have pointed out, a series of studies have well established that until recently the growth in US jobs and output was driven by the formation of new firms, or startups. In comparison, all existing firms older than five years, on net, did not generate even one additional job (i.e. new hires were offset by layoffs).
Last June, the United Nations Development Program released its Human Development Report for Egypt, which noted that 90 percent of the country’s unemployed, estimated to be 8 million, were younger than 30. Not surprisingly, time and again at post-revolution gatherings of political leaders and civil sector organizations set on creating a clear roadmap for the country’s political and economic development, youth entrepreneurship emerges as a key recommendation.
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