I have been recently giving talks to schools as well as groups of students on the concept of STEP UP (Student Entrepreneurship Provides Unlimited Possibilities). STEP UP is being formed as an organization whose sole purpose is to encourage, guide, and graduate young entrepreneurs. It is meant to provide students and young people a practical means and a nurturing environment for students and young people to learn, network, get encouraged as well as develop new ideas, concepts as well as businesses. We hope to be able to launch the organization this November and conduct our first student entrepreneur summit at the same time.

Here are two compelling reasons why we need to encourage more young entrepreneurs.

1. Young entrepreneurs add creativity, innovation, dynamism, and new blood into local economies. - There are more entrepreneurship opportunities for young people today than at any time in our Country’s history. Young people today have so much access to technology and communication, that they have literally developed a natural ability to literally “shrink the world”. They have instinctively capitalized in using these tools and finding new ways to use it much faster than traditional business can comprehend. This has allowed a lot of new business ideas to float and prosper. A lot of tech savvy young people are even finding opportunities to fill roles as “reverse mentors” or as consultants to older companies, teaching the latter how to harness the internet and technology to improve the bottom line. Encouraging and developing young entrepreneurs to take advantage of this tools and opportunity will stimulate and add jobs to local economies.

2. Young entrepreneurs will contribute to political maturity, free economy, and employment. – Whether we admit it or not, our Country’s economy has not yet developed into a real free market economy. A lot of sectors are still dominated by businesses that rely on politics, media, and poverty to exploit inequities and harvest profit. Young entrepreneurs, unlike their working employed counterparts, will develop faster a natural concern about how political leaderships are chosen, how government institutions are run, how corruption is kept in checked and a level playing field is maintained. By growing a generation of young entrepreneurs, our country will accelerate not only the pace of joining the ranks of the industrialized countries but also of becoming a real mature democracy.

We need to consistently find new ways of encouraging young people to consider entrepreneurship as a valid and realistic opportunity and a viable alternative to employment. We need to provide them tools as well as environments that they can tap in order to achieve this.

Young people owe it to themselves to find out whether or not they have the spirit, passion, creativity, and drive to become entrepreneurs. If they don’t think about it or start something while still young and students, more often than not, they no longer do when they are older and employed. It is a fact that student entrepreneurs are given more opportunities and leeway to achieve.

Think about it, if a young person succeeds, he will have added another contributing member to the business community as well as provided employment not only for himself but others. If he fails, he will have learnt valuable lessons that he can apply in life as well contributed to forming and molding his character. Lessons thathe can still apply while being employed.

William Hazlitt once said, “The more we do, the more we can do.” Let’s provide more opportunities for young people to find out how much more they can do. The possibilities can be endless, if they STEP UP.

Let’s follow the examples of these ordinary individuals as they strive to make a difference. Each week, lets all get together and share knowledge, stories, experiences, information, all for the sole purpose of getting One Step Up.

For comments, suggestions or stories that you want to share, email me at
stirspecialist@gmail.com , or visit www.stirspecialist.blogspot.com