Power of Dreams and Imagination

[Linda_Qian]

This entry was posted on behalf of Manav Subodh, Global Manager, Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Consider this..

"People rarely do what they can't dream of doing. We need to ignite the imagination and dreams of potential entrepreneurs"

And this..

"People rarely do what they don't see others like themselves doing. We need to "put a face" on entrepreneurship by telling the stories of the diverse array of entrepreneurs already hard at work starting and growing new ventures across the country"

And now view this..

 



I have been working on entrepreneurship programs for Intel for the last 6 years but the story in the video and the 2 fundamental principles above occurred to me just earlier this year.

Here are some interesting facts (courtesy Prof John Danner, UC Berkeley):

1) Any good entrepreneurship program on an average encourages 1 or a maximum 2, out of 100 students to become an "Entrepreneur".

2) Now flip the focus from "Entrepreneurs" to "Entrepreneurship", and the same program can now encourage on an average 30 to 40 students to the world of entrepreneurship.

We definitely need to take a "Big Tent" approach to entrepreneurship.

With the above vision and with a goal to dramatically accelerate the pace and scale of entrepreneurship in emerging economies, Intel is piloting a new initiative, titled Intel Youth Enterprise under its Intel Entrepreneurship program umbrella.

 



Intel Youth Enterprise program helps students develop ideation and innovation skills by giving them an opportunity to a work on a real social challenge.

The program is targeted for students, age 16-20 years, currently in a formal education system. It is designed to train these students to harness their innovation skills to create opportunities which enhance the livelihood of underserved youth in their country through the use of technology.

The Intel Youth Enterprise program is comprised of 5 components that are delivered to students over a 4-6 month period:

Students learn to identify social problems by viewing online video case studies relevant to their country. The students then to do field research and develop their own video case studies of a social problem they would like to solve as part of their application process. Passionate and motivated students are selected to move onto the next phase where they undergo training on:

1) Living Lab - students learn technologies such as broadband, devices, cloud, and various web 2.0 tools that can be used for starting a business.

2) The Innovation Camp - provides students with ideation and innovation skills training. The camp is based on the "Change makers" innovation game (licensed from Sputnik 5).

a. Innovation Camp has been successfully piloted in Denmark, where theme was education in India. The winning project was the Edu-Bus. A school on a bus which came to children after work hours enabling them to go to school at night, while still helping their families during day time.

b. Another Innovation Camp pilot was organized by Intel and local organizations in Ireland. Students addressed the problems of an aging population. The winner was an automatic lifting seat - a portable device that could be attached to chairs to lift a person to a standing position. Video of the camp

3) Entrepreneurship Basics (E-Basics) - The students get training on Entrepreneurship Basics a starter toolkit which contains context based learning of the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. The complete toolkit aims to provide all the tools and support needed by a youth to start their own business venture.

4) Implement- The students showcase their solution by implementing it with the NGOs and demonstrate measurable impact achieved through the new business models and social innovations for enhancing livelihood.

Intel Youth Enterprise is being piloted in Europe and the Middle East.

Let's encourage entrepreneurship not just entrepreneurs!