speech on entrepreneurship development

Speech on Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is like a thrilling journey. It’s about turning your unique ideas into a successful business. It’s about taking risks, facing challenges, and achieving dreams.

You might think of entrepreneurs as people who start companies. But they’re more than that. They’re problem solvers, innovators, and leaders. They shape the world we live in.

1-minute Speech on Entrepreneurship

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, today we’re talking about entrepreneurship. What is it? It’s like being a captain of your own ship. You decide where to go, how fast to sail, and who to bring on board. It’s about starting your own business and making it a success.

Imagine having a dream, a big idea. Maybe it’s a new toy, a cool app, or a delicious snack. As an entrepreneur, you take that dream and make it real. You find the materials, create a plan, and start building. It’s like a puzzle, but you’re making the pieces yourself.

But entrepreneurship isn’t just about making things. It’s also about solving problems. Have you ever thought, “I wish there was a better way to do this?” Well, entrepreneurs think like that all the time. They look for problems, big and small, and find new ways to fix them. It’s like being a superhero, but instead of superpowers, they use creativity and hard work.

Now, being an entrepreneur isn’t always easy. There are challenges, like a storm at sea. You might run out of materials, or your plan might not work. But entrepreneurs don’t give up. They learn from their mistakes, change their plans, and keep going. It’s about bravery and determination.

So, why is entrepreneurship important? Because it changes the world. It brings new ideas to life, solves problems, and creates jobs. It makes the world a better, more exciting place.

Remember, everyone can be an entrepreneur. All you need is a dream, a plan, and the courage to try. So, let’s all be captains of our own ships, and sail towards a brighter, more innovative future.

Also check:

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2-minute Speech on Entrepreneurship

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let’s talk about entrepreneurship. You might wonder, what is it? It’s like creating a new recipe. You mix different ingredients, cook them in a unique way, and serve something that’s never been tasted before. In the same way, an entrepreneur mixes ideas, resources, and hard work to create something new and exciting.

Entrepreneurs are like explorers. They journey into the unknown, facing risks and challenges. They might stumble and fall, but they always get back up. They learn from their mistakes and keep moving forward. They are brave, not afraid of failure but see it as a stepping stone to success.

Entrepreneurship is not just about making money. It’s about making a difference. Entrepreneurs solve problems. They see a need in the world and they fill it. They make our lives better, easier, and more enjoyable. They create jobs, boost the economy, and help communities grow.

Being an entrepreneur is not easy. It’s like climbing a mountain. It takes courage, determination, and a lot of hard work. But when you reach the top, the view is worth it. You have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve achieved something great. You’ve made a difference.

Entrepreneurship is also about creativity. Entrepreneurs are artists. They paint pictures not with brushes and colors, but with ideas and innovation. They dream big and turn their dreams into reality. They think outside the box and come up with solutions that no one else has thought of.

Finally, entrepreneurship is about freedom. As an entrepreneur, you are your own boss. You make your own decisions. You set your own goals. You have the freedom to follow your passion, to do what you love, and to make a living out of it.

So, let’s celebrate entrepreneurship. Let’s celebrate the courage, the creativity, the hard work, and the impact of entrepreneurs. Let’s encourage and support those who dare to dream, who dare to take risks, who dare to make a difference. Because entrepreneurship is not just a career, it’s a way of life.

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2 Minute Speech On Entrepreneurship In English

Good morning everyone present here, today I am going to give a speech on Entrepreneurship. The term “entrepreneurship” refers to the factor of production that carries out the tasks of an enterprise. In terms of economics, the five factors of land, labor, capital, organization, and enterprise are considered to be the cornerstones of all production operations. In a larger sense, entrepreneurship can be thought of as the course of action an entrepreneur takes to start his business.

Understanding the political and economic climate is important for the entrepreneur. The definition of entrepreneurship is a creative and original response to the environment. These reactions may occur in any area of social endeavor, including business, agriculture, social work, and education, among others.

Entrepreneurship, according to Dr. J.E. Stepenek, is the ability to take risks, the ability to organize yourself, and the drive to diversify your business and introduce new ideas. The purpose of entrepreneurship is to identify investment and production opportunities, organize an enterprise to carry out a new manufacturing method and identify new raw material sources.

To conclude, being an entrepreneur requires a variety of skills and traits, making it a composite skill. These include creative risk-taking, the capacity to combine and use other production elements like capital, land, and labor, as well as intangible qualities like the capacity to harness scientific and technical advancements. Thus, entrepreneurship entails taking a chance and making crucial investments in the face of uncertainty. Thank you. 

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Speech: “Women entrepreneurs can drive economic growth”—Lakshmi Puri

Date: Monday, 17 July 2017

Mr. Jack Ma, Founder and Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group Ms. Zhang Wei, Alibaba Pictures President Dr. Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group Honorable Bardish Chagger, Minister of Small Business and Tourism of Canada Dear friends,

I want to express my deepest appreciation to Mr. Jack Ma, chair of the Alibaba Group and the Alibaba team at large for the invitation to speak at this SHE·ERA: 2017 Global Conference on Women and Entrepreneurship. Jack Ma and his team’s leadership is to be commended for convening such a monumental conference, bringing the attention of the world to a pathbreaking SHE-ERA that transforms the globe through sustained investment in and support to women’s economic empowerment. We thank you again for your unconditional and solid support to UN Women. We need more leaders like you in the world.

You have brought together an impressive lineup of champions of gender equality and women's empowerment with a focus on one of the key drivers of GEWE - women's entrepreneurship. I bring you the greetings of Madame Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Women’s Executive Director. I would also like to convey the support of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Antonio Guterres, who is a true Gender Champion and supports all such initiatives that strengthen the global movement for gender equality!

Jack Ma and Alibaba partnership with UN Women

We commend your leadership Mr. Ma and you have been a pioneer in:

• Forging a transformative partnership with UN Women since the historic first ever Gender Equality Summit with nearly 70 heads of States and governments, co-hosted by China and UN Women in 2015 where you spoke on behalf of the private sector.
• Launching a Private Sector Forum for supporting UN Women and contributing to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 5 on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls.
• Financing our core institutional capacity especially on women's economic empowerment and women's entrepreneurship.

We continue to count on your support and on your inspiration for other private sector leaders in China and the world to join this movement of a socially accountable and gender responsive private sector who thinks and acts and impacts gender equality in their companies, in the market place and in the community.

Your quote last year, “women are the ‘secret sauce’ behind your company’s success,” continues to resonate, Mr. Ma, as a loud and clear invitation to the private sector leaders everywhere to emulate your employment practices and a gender equality and women's empowerment focused business model.

You have demonstrated that your quest for gender balance in the management and workforce of the company is achievable, that it empowers women as managers, traders, suppliers, producers and consumers and that this in turn generates and drives the exponential growth of your business.

We are convinced that women entrepreneurs can drive economic growth, but only if they are enabled to realize their rights and if we work in partnership with business, government and civil society to improve their opportunities and outcomes in global value chains. And this is what this conference is about.

Our deliberations for the next two days will contribute to strengthen the message that gender equality and women’s empowerment is the most important undertaking for our societies, economies and the international community as we enter a new and defining time for sustainable and inclusive development and peace and security with women’s leadership as a key driver.

The Essence of women's economic empowerment

Women’s economic empowerment is one of the world’s most promising areas of investment, biggest emerging markets, talent pools and demographic dividends to be tapped.

And when we speak of women’s economic empowerment we refer to women's economic rights including equal access to, ownership of and control over land, property, productive assets and resources including finance and capacity building and access on an equal basis as men to decent work and full and productive employment; their economic independence or full ability to freely assert their autonomy and exercise their choices; and their full access to decision making in all economic decisions that affect their lives and the lives of their families, communities and societies.

These three aspects of empowerment must be recognized and promoted as an integrated whole. If one aspect fails, the full empowerment cannot be realized and the whole sustainable development future is jeopardized.

Women's economic empowerment generates tremendous dividends for the society- Let me share some examples:

If women and men have the equal access to land, technology, financial services, education and markets, the consequent 20-30 per cent increase in agricultural production on women’s farms could lead to 100-150 million less hungry people.

If women participate in economic activity, own and control productive assets, it leads to development by helping to overcome poverty, reducing inequality and improving children’s nutrition, health, and school attendance.

If female employment were to match male employment, GDP could increase everywhere, for example, by 27 per cent in the Middle East and North Africa and by 19 per cent in South Asia.

If women and men stood on identical footing in terms of participation in the economy through paid work and entrepreneurship, the world could see as much as 28 trillion dollars in global growth by 2025- imagine that it would be the GDP of US and China put together!

There is growing global consensus on women’s economic empowerment as a force multiplier for good governance, economic growth, poverty eradication, ending hunger and achieving food security and nutrition, achieving sustainable consumption and production patterns and environmental sustainability, and SDG achievement overall.

Indeed, gender equality and women’s empowerment are integral to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015. As a universal call to action for all stakeholders, including in business, government, youth and civil society, the Agenda articulates priorities for joint efforts, so that all women and men, including young women, can share the benefits of economic growth and development, with no one left behind.

Market forces and enabling and special measures.

However, we can never lose sight of the fact that efforts to promote women’s economic empowerment require that market-based approaches and economic gains and incentives must go hand in hand with creating a deliberate ecosystem that enables women to realize their rights and level the capacity and opportunity playing field. This means governments and the private sector taking special measures. This is because historically systematic discrimination against women constrains their full and equal participation in the economy.

Entrepreneurship and decent work are the bedrocks of economic empowerment. They support the economic empowerment of women and men, families, communities, and countries. The Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development and 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development recognize the importance of entrepreneurship and decent work, specifically in Goal 8.3, “Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services.”

The agenda further elaborates on the criticality of women’s economic empowerment through other sustainable development goals (SDGs), particularly:

• SDG4 on Education (target 4.4)
• SDG5 (target 5.a and b)
• SDG8 on Economic growth and employment
• SDG17 (target 17.17) on Global partnership

It is recognized that just entrepreneurship alone fuels the creation of decent jobs and builds wealth when businesses thrive and grow. In China, if women started successful growth-oriented businesses as men do, it is estimated that 74 million more jobs could be created.

Global perspective on women and entrepreneurship

I will start by discussing some of the common structural barriers women entrepreneurs face and outline some of the solutions, drawing especially on the recommendations of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment and our own work in global norm and standard setting, strategic partnership and advocacy, knowledge hub and operational work Finally, I will highlight concrete areas where UN Women is working to make a difference.

Structural Barriers to women’s entrepreneurship

A number of constraints on women’s entrepreneurship lead to unequal economic opportunities and outcomes compared to men. They are rooted in structural barriers and discriminatory laws and social and cultural norms and stereotypes that limit the realization of women’s rights and treat women as inferior and subordinate to men including in the productive economy. The World Bank estimates that in 155 out of 173 economies, at least one gender-based legal restriction exists on women's employment and entrepreneurship.

As a result, there is increased feminization of poverty, pervasive gender disparities in wealth and income from work – which includes both paid employment and self-employment and women entrepreneurship. Furthermore, these constraints are linked to poverty, ethnicity, race, disability, rural and remote location and status, resulting in multiple and intersecting economic marginalization for many women.

Major areas of gender inequalities in the economy include women’s predominance in the informal economy, occupational segregation, discrimination in the entire recruitment, retention, promotion and reentry chain in formal employment, gender pay gaps, lack of assets, unequal and inadequate access to productive resources, capacity building and finance and a heavy and disproportionate burden of unpaid care and domestic work and sexual harassment at the workplace.

Some 70 per cent of women workers are employed or self-employed in informal jobs, which are insecure, unprotected and poorly paid.

Occupational segregation by gender means that women are still overwhelmingly clustered in low-paid, poor-quality jobs- sticky floor phenomenon. The most pernicious impact of segregation is pervasive gender pay gaps, which mean that women are systematically paid less than men for work of equal value. The global gender pay gap stands at 23 per cent.

One cause of occupational segregation is the expectation that women are the primary care-givers for families. Care work is seen separated from formal economic activities, and is not remunerated. Globally, women spend an average of 2.5 times more time on unpaid care work compared to men.

It is well recognized that the time women spend on unpaid care work constrains the time available to dedicate to paid work activities, the types of work in which they engage, and their earning potential.

Another major structural barrier is women’s lack of access to productive assets – often dictated by laws on inheritance and property rights – which means that women have less collateral to raise capital to invest in a business. As result women remain in sectors with low barriers to entry and limited growth potential.

Although women-owned enterprises have been the target of microfinance interventions, there has been a dearth of activity supporting “the missing middle,” or mezzo-level financing for women-owned small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with high growth potential. For example, only about 14 to 19 percent of International Financial Corporation loans are issued to women-owned SME clients, despite evidence that they perform just as well as those owned by men!!

Breaking the glass ceilings and glass walls through entrepreneurship and innovation: Solutions based on recommendations of the High-Level Panel

Recognizing that advancing women’s economic empowerment is a global imperative and its catalytic potential in achieving the SDGs, the UN Secretary-General established the High-Level Panel (HLP) on Women’s Economic Empowerment in 2016 and President Kim is a distinguished member of the Panel.

The panel identified seven primary drivers of women’s economic empowerment which apply to women's entrepreneurship as a key means and made recommendations thereon calling for:

• Tackling adverse norms and promoting positive role models
• Ensuring legal protection and reforming discriminatory laws and regulations
• Recognizing, reducing and redistributing and provisioning unpaid care and domestic work
• Building assets—Digital, financial and property
• Changing business and private sector culture and practice
• Improving public sector practices in employment and procurement
• Strengthening visibility, collective voice and representation

UN Women is working to address these drivers and implement the recommendations of the High-Level Panel through its flagship programming initiatives.

Procurement as a key driver of women's entrepreneurship

For example, one of the key drivers the Panel identified was leveraging procurement to create economic opportunities for women-owned businesses as suppliers to governments, international organizations and corporations which procure goods and services from companies to carry out their functions.

Whether these entities are delivering health services, building a road, or manufacturing a product, smaller private sector companies are involved as suppliers. Public procurement alone accounts for 15 to 30 per cent of GDP in countries. This creates market opportunities that have long been recognized as an engine for growth in SMEs, yet women-owned enterprises are severely underrepresented as suppliers, securing only an estimated 1 per cent of contracts .

The SG's UN Panel estimates that even a 1 per cent increase in the share of procurement would result in 60-70 billion dollars in revenues for women-owned businesses. This is equivalent to the economy of countries like Cambodia, Costa Rica or Tanzania… a great deal we have in hand!!

It recommends that governments establish and track government-wide targets for women’s participation in procurement and encourage suppliers to do the same. Women-owned enterprises and women’s collectives should furthermore be trained on how to do business with government.

Corporations are also well positioned to promote gender equality and empower women in their workplaces, in their communities, and through purchasing policies and practices. The sheer size and volume of corporate purchasing worldwide means that corporations have the power to dramatically influence the way suppliers and supply chains operate.

By overlooking women-owned businesses, many corporations are missing an opportunity to expand their global markets, diversify and upgrade their supply chains, grow the economy, and increase the purchasing power of women consumers while simultaneously improving the lives of women and girls around the globe. Alibaba group is seizing these opportunities and kudos to you for that. You have made e-commerce a powerful vehicle of women's entrepreneurship and empowerment.

UN Women’s Transformative Programming

Women’s economic empowerment is at the core of UN Women’s priority areas. Working with a variety of partners, our programmes around the world and specifically in 75 countries on the ground seek to promote women’s ability to secure decent jobs, accumulate assets, and influence institutions and public policies determining growth and development. Our aims are higher incomes, better access to and control over resources, and greater security, including protection from violence.

One critical area of focus involves promoting women’s entrepreneurship, with a particular target on reaching out to women most in need, often by engaging with grass-roots and civil society organizations. Particularly marginalized groups include rural women, domestic workers, refugees and migrants, disabled and low-skilled women. At the global corporate level our advocacy seeks to influence gender parity in the Boards and management of companies and for them to join the Women's Empowerment Principles.

Some examples:

Since 2013, UN Women has facilitated EmpowerWomen.org , an innovative online knowledge, engagement and learning platform on women’s economic empowerment. It has made available over 2,500 documents and videos, 850 stories, 2,600 discussions, 500 events and opportunities and 220 organizations showcasing their work.

Empower Women has grown into a global movement with more than a million viewers and over 20,000 passionate and ambitious women and men contributing from the private sector, civil society, academia, governments and international organizations from more than 190 countries.

As part of our strategy to drive industry-wide action in the area of gender equality and innovation, UN Women is creating a collective action platform called the Global Innovation Coalition for Change (GICC) to be launched later this year. The GICC is a dynamic partnership between UN Women and key representatives from the private sector, academia and not for profit institutions focused on developing the innovation market to work better for women and accelerate the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment. The GICC will focus on market awareness of the potential for innovations that meet the needs of women and innovations that are developed by women and identify key actions to address their needs and remove barriers at an industry wide level.

Another example of UN Women’s transformative power is its “Women’s Entrepreneurship in Gender Responsive Procurement” flagship programme to generate opportunities for women entrepreneurs, so that they can earn sustainable income, create jobs, and drive sustainable, inclusive economic growth. UN Women released a guide this year for corporations to practice gender-responsive procurement, called “The Power of Procurement: How to Source from Women-Owned Businesses.”

The work includes conducting gender assessments that analyze the opportunities and barriers for women entrepreneurs, identifying strategic sectors in which to focus, and supporting the development of financial services that meet the unique needs of women-business owners.

As part of our flagship program “Women’s Entrepreneurship in Gender Responsive Procurement,” we will be creating opportunities for substantial impact in this area. For example, in December, the Women’s Economic Empowerment Summit to be held in Sharjah, UAE, and will feature activities to boost the capacity of both buyers and sellers to interact, negotiate and do business and bring investors and entrepreneurs together to explore avenues for partnership.

Also, promoting young women’s economic empowerment and skills development is a key pillar in UN Women’s Youth and Gender Equality Strategy. On World Youth Skills Day, 15 July 2016, UN Women launched the Global Coalition of Young Women Entrepreneurs to promote young women’s innovation and entrepreneurship and provide a platform for exchange between leading young women entrepreneurs, stakeholders and advocates, as well as men and boys who can also play an important role as partners and allies. The coalition will work to generate a Knowledge Toolbox for advancing young women entrepreneur’s skills and share best practices, to then be adopted by countries world over.

All these and the many UN Women programmes on the ground that have empowered millions of women economically have benefitted from the precious partnership between UN Women and Alibaba! Long live that partnership! 

Call to Action

At this conference, I would like to call upon all stakeholders from government, business and civil society to engage in collective actions to:

• Foster an enabling business and financial climate for women entrepreneurs
• Eliminate structural barriers
• Take concrete actions through strategic policies and partnerships
• Create new and innovative opportunities for women-owned businesses to thrive and grow
• Leverage procurement as a powerful tool to drive transformative results

I want to take this opportunity to call upon you to convey a meeting of male business leaders to stand together on gender equality and women’s empowerment in China. I hope Mr. Jack Ma you can take the lead on this and it can be done early next year.

I call upon male business leaders around the world to be inspired by and be like Jack Ma, and be a real HeForShe who has inaugurated a true SHE-ERA for women and girls by creating ecosystems that transform families, communities, markets and societies by recognizing women as equal and powerful economic agents of change.

The ambition of achieving the sustainable development goals cannot be achieved without putting women in the center of our efforts. Their talent, vision, leadership and entrepreneurial spirit unleashed are quintessential to reaching the present and future women and girls want, need and deserve but also for a sustainable, peaceful and prosperous future for all of humanity.

Now I call upon all of you to join UN Women’s global call on achieving a

Planet 50-50 by 2030 and to Step it up for Gender Equality. 

Repeat after me,

Planet 50-50 by 2030: step it up for Gender equality 

Who will do it?

We will do it.

Will we get there?

We will get there.

With visionaries and champions like all of you we are better positioned to keep this tryst with our gender equal destiny within a generation and not wait another century!

I thank you.

• ‘One Woman’ – The UN Women song
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UNSGSA Opening Speech at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2019

Opening remarks by her majesty queen máxima of the netherlands, the united nations secretary-general’s special advocate for inclusive finance for development (unsgsa), at the global entrepreneurship summit 2019: the future now, held on 4 june 2019 in the hague, the netherlands..

Excellencies,  Distinguished guests,  Ladies and gentlemen,

An entrepreneurial culture is the foundation to any thriving economy and society. As a member of the Dutch Committee for Entrepreneurship, I am proud to say that in The Netherlands, achieving a sustainable growth of small and medium-sized enterprises—SMEs—is a key part of our economic agenda.

Also, as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development, my mandate is to support policies and business practices that advance universal access to affordable, effective, and safe financial services. Currently, 1.7 billion adults globally remain unable to access financial services such as savings, credit, insurance, and payments. And in terms of businesses, still today, around 40% of formal MSMEs worldwide lack the financing to expand, therefore hampering a robust inclusive economic growth.

Over the years, I have seen how essential entrepreneurship is in creating employment, value and innovation, while delivering products and services that people need around the world, both in developing and developed countries.

“Traditional” entrepreneurship has been the backbone of our local economies for centuries.But as technology advances, we are now witnessing the rapid emergence of innovative entrepreneurships: the ‘startups’.

A combination of tech-led and innovative business models enables them to create new products and services that reach more people at a cheaper cost, utilize unused assets and build upon data information. Even things that were unthinkable before. Whole sectors have been transformed—from financial services to food and agriculture, connectivity, energy, water, and healthcare—making these services more efficient and more accessible for even greater portions of the world’s population.

For any entrepreneur—startup or traditional—there are five key factors that can help a business fully thrive and make our world more inclusive.

• Access to finance—both for entrepreneurs and their customers.
• Technology—the need for fast digitization of all businesses.
• A customer-centric business model, which allows usage and access to markets.
• An enabling environment, including infrastructure.
• And more and more, leveraging strategic partnerships. 

First: For businesses, access to finance is crucial.

However, an IFC study found that the financing gap for MSMEs in emerging markets amounts to over $8 trillion (dollars). A lack of collateral, credit history, or transaction records can make it difficult for traditional businesses to access affordable credit from lenders. In the Netherlands, Qredits was created specifically for smaller firms that didn’t have access to normal banking credit.

Innovative startup entrepreneurs also face financing challenges but they are different from traditional MSMEs. Access to growth capital such as venture funds and angel investors can be limited in every phase.

Second: Technology

Technology and digitization can dramatically reduce cost and allow entrepreneurs to develop profitable low-value, big-volume business models. This is even more essential in emerging markets where infrastructure is less available, and the majority of the consumers have very limited purchasing power.

For example, fintech lenders such as Konfio in Mexico or Lidya in Nigeria use digital platforms and data analytics to lower customer acquisition and underwriting.

This means these companies can offer more affordable rates than traditional lenders at a much faster turnaround time. They also provide highly valued, non-financial services which really help clients grow. Lidya for example, offers clients digital methods to track invoices and receive payment reminders—giving these SMEs better insights in their business will help them increase productivity.

Third: A customer-centric business model, which is key for usage, scale and impact.  

Last year, during a visit to Indonesia, I became acquainted with Go-Jek—a startup which began as a very needed ride-hailing app for the country’s highly informal and traditional motorcycle taxi industry. Go-Jek is now a “super-app” that offers 18 on-demand services ranging from transportation to food services and logistics delivery, to in-home cleaning services. All provided by more that one million micro-entrepreneurs.

Customers needed to pay all of these services in an easy and fast way, so Go-Jek set up its own digital wallet—now one of the most used in Indonesia. Go-Jek is, today, one of Southeast Asia’s most valuable unicorns.

Fourth: Governments play an important role to foster entrepreneurship in an inclusive and responsible way.

Fintech has huge potential to play a transformative role to combat exclusion. But the speed and complexity of new innovations can be a challenge for regulators. Regulation should not stifle innovation. But at the same time it should protect consumers and the stability of systems—quite a balancing act.

It is important to recognize the power of having regulators and fintech innovators find solutions together to tackle risks and accelerate progress. To support regulators, particularly from emerging and developing economies, my fintech working group recently released a report that provides insights into regulatory innovations and will hopefully help to foster new technologies without hampering stability and consumer protection.

One issue that is very important is to ensure a level playing field. This is very true to financial services as it is in other sectors. As new technologies appear, the likelihood of a winner-takes-all situation could be more pronounced in emerging markets—especially within the digital space.

Because of the absence of infrastructure, a new innovative player can build ecosystems to address the infrastructure challenges around their business model. This is needed to transform a market at the beginning but might lead to a monopolistic or oligopolistic market structure. It is therefore important for regulators to mitigate against excessive market concentration.

For all of these things to work in an inclusive and fair way we will need certain pre-requisites, as I like to call them. These key enabling factors include cybersecurity, digital ID systems, customer data protection, financial and digital literacy, data privacy, and connectivity for all segments of the population.

In terms of competition and giving everybody an opportunity, entrepreneurship itself should be inclusive, particularly for women. Ability and intelligence cut across gender, but opportunity—and access to capital—does not.  A study in the US found that, on average, women receive less in early-stage capital than men; yet startups founded by women generally deliver over two times per dollar invested more than those founded by men.

And in the Netherlands, only 8% of the companies that have attracted venture capital have women in the leading teams. It shows a big disconnect between female entrepreneurship and venture capital. 

To address this issue and make finance work for women, FemNL has been launched in the NL. It encompasses the creation of the Borski Fund and a mentoring program, Fempower Your Growth.

This investment fund will hopefully allow more female talent to set up companies, and subsequently show others investors that women are worth investing in.

And my fifth and final point is the growing importance of strategic partnerships.  

Businesses of course do not operate in isolation. Many depend on ecosystems to thrive. The Dutch company ASML, which produces machines that make semiconductors, works in an “Open Innovation” system together with its suppliers, partners, and customers. In this way, it expands the knowledge and skills of all the partners involved, and accelerates innovations, much faster, than any one partner could do alone.

Creative partnerships can also help entrepreneurs grow faster by reaching last-mile and previously unserved customers. Last year we convened the CEO Partnership for Economic Inclusion to create this sort of cooperation. For example: Telenor, a mobile services provider, partnered with Unilever and PepsiCo, to enable micro-merchants in Pakistan to digitize their payments. The digitized transaction data can then be used to assess their creditworthiness for working capital loans. This resulted in higher incomes for the micro-merchants, and of course was good for the involved companies. Of course, technology is vital in allowing more of this kind of cross-industry partnerships.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Before I conclude, I’d like to say how wonderful it is to have so many entrepreneurs and innovators from around the world gathered here. Also, because it gives me the perfect chance to share some of my wishes with you!

First, we need data and timely in-depth analysis on the whole entrepreneurship landscape. The dynamism is large and ever-increasing. By having insights on who is winning, who is treading slowly and who is losing and why, we can design better policies and really help entrepreneurs. We are trying to achieve this with our yearly State of the SMEs report in the Netherlands.

Second, given that digitization, management systems changes and investment in human resources are key to increase productivity, how can we help companies to invest in those processes? Today, one cannot secure or guarantee a loan that helps you re-school your people or buy a new software, making funding difficult to obtain. How can we “secure” the financing for these investments?

And lastly, we have so many challenges, from sustainability to energy and water provision, food security, women empowerment, maintaining healthy families. How can we create partnerships within the private sector, across industries and with the NGOs to design products that can improve lives of so many that need it? We are seeing many examples, certainly building on technology, but we need more and we need scale if we want to change the world and make it a more equitable one.

I look forward to learning more about all your endeavors and I hope that we can learn from each other and above all inspire each other to make a better world.

Entrepreneurship for the "Underdeveloped"

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Keynote Speech on “Entrepreneurship and Innovation for Sustainable Development in Developing Countries”

2021, The 3rd Africa-Asia Dialogue Network (AADN) International Conference on Advances in Business Management and Electronic Commerce Research (AADNIC-ABMECR – 2021 on 26 November 2021 Organized by The Africa-Asia Dialogue Network, China

The economic growth of a country often depends on the factors like (i) availability of natural resources, (ii) rate of capital formation, (iii) favorable capital-output ratio, (iv) technological progress, (v) dynamic entrepreneurship, (vi) rate of growth of population, (vii) conditions of social overheads like education, health, and various non-economic factors. In 1960s, Cattell and Butchir found that 7% world populations living in USA and they enjoy 43% world’s wealth while 55% populations live in Asia enjoy only 16% resources of the world. At present, just 5% of the world's population live in USA consumes 23% of its energy. That's really wasteful. Imagine, if you waste five times more gasoline or five times more food or produced five times more garbage, your neighbors wouldn't be very happy! Yet, that's what we're doing. This difference is mainly because of the ownership of natural resources. However, these resources are not unique for certain countries only but its existence cannot expedite the economic growth without the development of entrepreneurship.

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Keynote Speech on “Entrepreneurship and Innovation for Sustainable Development in Developing Countries” at the “The 3rd Africa-Asia Dialogue Network (AADN) International Conference on Advances in Business Management and Electronic Commerce Research (AADNIC-ABMECR – 2021, Organized by AADN, China

Dr. Nazrul Islam

Presented in International Conference on "Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Economy for Sustainable Development" on 10 October 2018 at Sairam Institute of Management Studies, Sairam Engineering College, Chennai, India

The economic growth of a country often depends on the factors like availability of natural resources, rate of capital formation, favorable capital-output ratio, technological progress, dynamic entrepreneurship, rate of growth of population, conditions of social overheads such as, education, health, and various non-economic factors. In 1960s, Cattell and Butchir found that 7% world populations living in USA and they enjoy 43% world’s wealth while 55% populations live in Asia enjoy only 16% resources of the world. At present, just 5% of the world's population live in USA consumes 23% of its energy. That's really extravagant. Imagine if you waste five times more gasoline or five times more food or produced five times more garbage, your neighbors wouldn't be very happy! Yet, that's what we're doing. This difference is mainly because of the ownership of natural resources. However, these resources are not unique for certain countries only but its existence cannot expedite the economic growth without the development of entrepreneurship.

Samuel O Olutuase, PhD

The pursuit of economic development and dominance by countries of the world is common to both advanced and third world countries. Economic theories and models propounded by Adams Smith in the 18th century and Ricardo in the 19th century among other scholars, have laid the cornerstone around which various economic strategies and approaches have been fashioned to reach this common goal. The result has been a wide gap that made some economies of the world to be known as " advanced, industrialised " and some others, " developing, third world " economies. While some past researches have attempted to pinpoint factors such as poor infrastructure, poor capital formation, weak institutional framework and so on as some factors responsible for back‐lagging of these " developing " , economies, recent emphases through empirical and academic researches have shown that the much needed economic " miracle " for the third world countries is embedded in the factor of entrepreneurship. In fact, the unravelling of this factor has produced what is termed " emerging " economies such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, etc. This paper therefore explores a mix of entrepreneurship theories and models believed to underlie the rapid and sustainable economic growth and development of countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Thailand and Mexico with a view of framing a unique and an adaptable entrepreneurship model for other developing economies like Nigeria. The resulting model, being founded on the works of Schumpeter, is necessity‐driven; opportunity‐based; resources‐enabled; and result‐focused. Characteristically, the model has five pillars: " window " , " network " , " corridor " , " product " and " outcome ". Though novel, the five‐pillar‐entrepreneurship model is hoped to be proven useful in the academia and policy‐making parlance. You may locate the article at: Olutuase, S. O. (2014, June). Entrepreneurship Model for Sustainable Economic Development in Developing Countries. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship: ICIE 2014 (p. 191). Academic Conferences Limited.

Ijbmm Journal

Since the mid-1980s, sustainable development has been generally used but got predominance when it became progressively fashionable to use it as a way of reacting to global environmental concerns, biophysical issues, fairness, equity and distribution. The issue of sustainable development has been a growing concern to both the government and the private sector thus;

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Innovation and Entrepreneurship is an economic engine of any economy especially developing nations. A need therefore exists to understand entrepreneurship in the context of innovation and sustainable development goals. It is important to note that most entrepreneurs in Africa have failed to embrace innovation in its totality and as a result most businesses are unable to cope with the technological changes that are taking place every day. Therefore the cost of doing business has gone up. For example, entrepreneurs stick to the old ways of doing business instead of using new technologies to enhance business. Such businesses fail to cope with the ever changing world and subsequently lose market and wind up. It is sad to note that in Zambia for example most companies have scaled down due to high cost of doing business. In bettering the lives of the people, the United Nations have developed 17 sustainable development goals. In crafting their business strategies, entrepreneurs should ther...

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Sustainopreneurship is an emerging issue as society is looking for solutions leading to sustainable development. For sustainable development, environmental issues related to degradation and depletion, public health care issues related to availability and distribution of medicine for public welfare along with economic issues related to unemployment and dearness offer opportunity for entrepreneurs. Sustainopreneurship can help to resolve these issues. The present study is focused on various aspects of sustainable development. The paper explores how sustainopreneurship can lead to a socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable society.

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Innovation Videos | Online Innovation Talks

Innovation Speech: Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Innovation

Innovation Speech: Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Innovation by Josh Linkner. (Tech Entrepreneur, Author, Innovation & Creativity Expert, Keynote Speaker:) http://www.bigspeak.com/josh-linkner.html Josh Linkner is on a mission to help the world unleash its creative mojo. The five-time successful tech entrepreneur and CEO/Managing Partner of a Detroit Venture firm delivers a clear call to action – it’s better to disrupt your organization before your competition does. The riskiest move companies can make today is hugging the status quo – believing the future will be like the past is the fast road to obsolescence.

Linkner’s first book, Disciplined Dreaming — A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity, outlines his prescription for business success. A New York Times bestseller, it was named one of 2011’s top ten business titles by Amazon.com.

Josh Linkner is also founder and former CEO of ePrize, the world’s largest interactive promotion agency which provides digital marketing services for 74 of the top 100 brands. Prior to ePrize, he was founder/CEO of three other successful technology companies. Each of his four startups enjoyed successful exits with a combined value of over $200 million.

Learning to systematically jump-start the creative energy of individuals at all levels of the organization is essential to finding new routes to growth, profitability and innovation. Josh Linkner shows how to do it with clear and actionable insights that are based on his own experience and lessons from some of the world’s best-known brands.

Josh Linkner is a creative force — an out-of-the-box thinker whose approach to business was forged in disruptive times. He is an entrepreneur and a respected working jazz guitarist — a combination that accounts for his unique way of listening to business and the marketplace. Improvisation is in his blood — a venture capitalist that lives in the world of possibility.

He has been on the board of over 40 companies, raised over $100 million of venture capital, employed thousands of people and fought through the dot-com crash, 9/11 and the 2008 financial meltdown. His extraordinary business accomplishments led him to be honored as the Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” and as a President Barack Obama “Champion of Change” Award recipient.

More About Speaker, Josh Linkner. . . Josh Linkner is a regular contributor to Forbes and Inc. magazines. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times and he is a weekly columnist for the Detroit Free Press.

Josh inspires people with powerful, fun and practical techniques. He ignites immediate and profound results and will show how to unleash hidden creativity and fresh thinking in every setting — from weekly staff meetings to major innovation sessions to new product breakthroughs. Organizations learn to tap into a deep well of inspiration and new ideas — any one of which lead to dramatic outcomes to leadership, innovation and performance. People come alive as they engage their curiosity and wonder — what seemed ordinary becomes an opportunity for new discoveries

To hire Josh Linkner to speak at your next event, contact BigSpeak Speakers Bureau. http://www.bigspeak.com/josh-linkner.html

After you’ve watched an innovation video what can you do next? How can you apply what you’ve learned or been inspired to do…and keep learning and being inspired? You can watch more videos or read more on the topic but consider this. We learn most through reflective action, through applying the knowledge we’ve gained, through experiencing and making it real for use. What can you do or take action on?

This Innovation Videos website is a resources to help you stay fresh, on the cutting edge, and up to date with your own learning and personal and professional development. The ability and skill to innovate is becoming more important than ever due to the rapid pace of change in our world. You may not have had a class on “innovation” in school or at your work so it is up to you to gain the knowledge, attitude, mindset, and skill that will allow you to adapt and respond to change with innovation. A first step is to read or watch videos on this site to get inspired and learn ways you can be more innovative. Then, take what you are learning and apply it to your own life and work. Take on an innovative project to create and develop something new that can have an impact, something you may not have ever done before. Perhaps you will get an idea from an innovation video on our site.

After learning on your own look to be a part of a leadership program, workshop, course, or seminar. Join a group or even create a startup with some partners. Involve other people in learning and doing innovation with you. Keep reading and keep listening because there is always opportunity to learn new methods since new technologies are being introduced all the time. When you are just working on your computer, have a video playing to listen and learn. See if you can watch (or at least listen to) a different innovation video everyday to keep developing your knowledge base and leadership skills. But remember…you will need to do something. Take action!

Innovation Videos to Develop your Knowledge to Innovate

Remarks at “Entrepreneurship for Development” General Assembly Thematic Debate

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, General Assembly, 26 June 2013

I am pleased to address this important debate.

We meet in the middle of a global jobs crisis that demands a bold response.

This year, some 73 million young people will be unemployed.

An estimated 425 million young women and men will join the labour force between 2016 and 2030. That means the world will need about half a billion jobs by then.

To help meet this challenge, we should encourage, educate and empower young entrepreneurs.

My Envoy on Youth, Ahmad Alhendawi agrees. He says “We need to make a shift from talking about creating jobs for youth to talking about inventing jobs by youth.”

Entrepreneurship can be a part of the solution by transforming unemployed young people into major employers.

Let me give you an example.

Lorna Rutto is a young woman from the Rift Valley in Kenya. It is a beautiful region, but like many people there, Lorna grew up in a slum.

One of the biggest problems was the sewage and waste. There was no garbage collection so the trash just accumulated.

Before she was even a teenager, Lorna saw an opportunity. She melted the plastic into little ornaments that she could sell.

In her twenties, Lorna started a recycling programme. The International Labour Organization helped her shape a business plan. By the time she was 24, she had created 500 jobs.

In the process, Lorna has eliminated over 1 million kilos of waste from the environment and saved more than 250 hectares of forest.

This is how we create the future we want; by finding solutions to sustainable development challenges – solutions that create jobs and spur growth.

Lorna is very impressive. But she is not alone. There are countless other young people with fresh ideas who can help us to unleash change.

We should not waste their potential. And, as Lorna has said, we should see the potential job opportunities in waste.

Ladies and Gentlemen;

Entrepreneurship is about innovating, breaking down barriers, taking risks and showing that new business models can tackle longstanding problems.

Many large companies started in someone’s kitchen or backyard. A number of those companies are now major corporations giving back to communities. Individuals are also making important contributions. Collectively, these entrepreneurs are helping to advance the Millennium Development Goals.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

This generation of youth is the largest in history. If we invest in their education and empowerment, we can transform our world.

Too many young people are caught up in conflicts, languishing in poverty or struggling just to eat. We have to provide them with a peaceful, secure environment where they can cultivate their skills and contribute to society.

Let us do everything possible to nurture young people and open their prospects for the future.

I call on all partners to support youth entrepreneurship, self-employment and youth-led businesses. The United Nations system will do its part. Our Global Compact initiative will continue mobilizing and supporting young entrepreneurs in advancing a more sustainable future.

The UN, the World Bank and the ILO are collaborating on a Youth Employment Network to help young people to start and run their own enterprises.

The UN Capital Development Fund is working with the MasterCard Foundation to establish YouthStart. This initiative aims to increase access to financial services for low-income youth in sub-Saharan Africa. It is helping them make sound financial decisions, build a strong asset base, and create sustainable livelihoods.

Now we must build on this progress.

There are five steps we can take together:

First: Foster an enabling environment for youth entrepreneurship.

Second: Build the capacities of local institutions.

Third: Provide career counselling.

Fourth: Facilitate access to finance and youth-friendly financial services.

And fifth: Coach young entrepreneurs beyond the start-up phase, so they can maintain success.

Let us also support cooperatives, microcredit initiatives and other drivers of entrepreneurship.

I look forward to your ideas to support entrepreneurs to realize our shared vision of a prosperous, safer and more secure world.

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How to Inspire Entrepreneurial Thinking in Your Students

Explore more.

• Course Design
• Experiential Learning
• Perspectives
• Student Engagement

T he world is in flux. The COVID-19 pandemic has touched every corner of the globe, profoundly impacting our economies and societies as well as our personal lives and social networks. Innovation is happening at record speed. Digital technologies have transformed the way we live and work.

At the same time, world leaders are collaborating to tackle the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals , which aim to address issues related to health, education, gender equality, energy, and more. Private sector leaders, too, are recognizing that it makes good business sense to be aware of corporations’ social and environmental impact.

So, how can we as educators prepare our students to succeed in this tumultuous and uncertain—yet hopeful and exhilarating—global environment? As the world changes, so do the skills students need to build their careers—and to build a better society. For students to acquire these evolving skills, we believe educators must help students develop an entrepreneurial mindset.

6 Ways You Can Inspire Entrepreneurial Thinking Among Your Students

An entrepreneurial mindset —attitudes and behaviors that encapsulate how entrepreneurs tend to think and act—enables one to identify and capitalize on opportunities, change course when needed, and view mistakes as an opportunity to learn and improve.

If a student decides to become an entrepreneur, an entrepreneurial mindset is essential. And for students who plan to join a company, nonprofit, or government agency, this mindset will enable them to become intrapreneurs —champions of innovation and creativity inside their organizations. It can also help in everyday life by minimizing the impact of failure and reframing setbacks as learning opportunities.

“As the world changes, so do the skills students need to build their careers—and to build a better society.”

Effective entrepreneurship professors are skilled at nurturing the entrepreneurial mindset. They, of course, have the advantage of teaching a subject that naturally demands students think in this way. However, as we will explore, much of what they do in their classroom is transferable to other subject areas.

We interviewed top entrepreneurship professors at leading global institutions to understand the pedagogical approaches they use to cultivate this mindset in their students. Here, we will delve into six such approaches. As we do, think about what aspects of their techniques you can adopt to inspire entrepreneurial thinking in your own classroom.

1. Encourage Students to Chart Their Own Course Through Project-Based Learning

According to Ayman Ismail, associate professor of entrepreneurship at the American University in Cairo, students are used to pre-packaged ideas and linear thinking. “Students are often told, ‘Here’s X, Y, Z, now do something with it.’ They are not used to exploring or thinking creatively,” says Ismail.

To challenge this linear pattern, educators can instead help their students develop an entrepreneurial mindset through team-based projects that can challenge them to identify a problem or job to be done, conduct market research, and create a new product or service that addresses the issue. There is no blueprint for students to follow in developing these projects, so many will find this lack of direction confusing—in some cases even frightening. But therein lies the learning.

John Danner, who teaches entrepreneurship at Princeton University and University of California, Berkeley, finds his students similarly inhibited at the start. “My students come in trying to understand the rules of the game,” he says. “I tell them the game is to be created by you.”

Danner encourages students to get comfortable navigating life’s maze of ambiguity and possibility and to let their personal initiative drive them forward. He tells them, “At best you have a flashlight when peering into ambiguity. You can shine light on the next few steps.”

In your classroom: Send students on an unstructured journey. Dive right in by asking them to identify a challenge that will hone their problem-finding skills and encourage them to work in teams to find a solution. Do not give them a blueprint.

For example, in our M²GATE virtual exchange program, we teamed US students with peers located in four countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. We asked them to identify a pressing social issue in MENA and then create a product or service to address it. One of the teams identified the high rate of youth unemployment in Morocco as an issue. They discovered that employers want workers with soft skills, but few schools provide such training. Their solution was a low-cost after-school program to equip students ages 8-16 with soft skills.

2. Help Students Think Broadly and Unleash Their Creativity

Professor Heidi Neck says her students at Babson College struggle with problem finding at the start of the entrepreneurial journey. “They are good at solving problems, but not as good at finding the problem to solve,” she explains. “For example, they know that climate change is a problem, and they’re interested in doing something about it, but they’re not sure what problem within that broad area they can focus on and find a market for.”

Professor Niko Slavnic, who teaches entrepreneurship at IEDC-Bled School of Management in Slovenia and the ESSCA School of Management in France, says he first invests time in teaching his students to unlearn traditional ways of thinking and unleash their creativity. He encourages students to get outside their comfort zones. One way he does this is by having them make paper airplanes and then stand on their desks and throw them. Many ask, “Should we do this? Is this allowed?” When his students start to question the rules and think about new possibilities, this indicates to Slavnic that they are primed for the type of creative exploration his course demands.

“When students start to question the rules and think about new possibilities, this indicates to Professor Niko Slavnic that they are primed for the type of creative exploration his course demands.”

In your classroom: Think about the concept of “unlearning.” Ask yourself if students are entering your class with rigid mindsets or attitudes based on rules and structures that you would like to change. For example, they may be coming into your classroom with the expectation that you, the instructor, have all the answers and that you will impart your wisdom to them throughout the semester. Design your course so that students spend more time than you do presenting, with you acting more as an advisor (the “guide on the side”).

3. Prompt Students to Take Bold Actions

Geoff Archer, an entrepreneurship professor at Royal Roads University in Canada, says Kolb’s theory of experiential learning underpins the entrepreneurial management curriculum he designed. Archer takes what he calls a “ready-fire-aim approach,” common in the startup world—he throws students right into the deep end. They are tasked with creating a for-profit business from scratch and operating it for a month. At the end of the semester, they must come up with a “pitch deck”—a short presentation providing potential investors with an overview of their proposed new business—and an investor-ready business plan.

This approach can be met with resistance, especially with mature learners. “They’re used to winning, and it’s frustrating and more than a bit terrifying to be told to do something without being given more structure upfront,” says Archer.

Professor Rita Egizii, who co-teaches with Archer, says students really struggled when instructed to get out and talk with potential customers about a product they were proposing to launch as part of their class project. “They all sat outside on the curb on their laptops. For them, it’s not normal and not okay to make small experiments and fail,” says Egizii.

Keep in mind that, culturally, the taboo of failure—even on a very small scale and even in the name of learning—can be ingrained in the minds of students from around the world.

The benefit of this permutation, explains Archer, is that students are writing plans based on actual experiences—in this case, customer interactions. Moving the starting blocks forward offers many benefits, including getting the students out of the classroom and out of their heads earlier, reminding them that the market’s opinion of their solution is far more important than their own. This also affords students more time to reflect and maximize the potential of their minimum viable product or experiment.

In your classroom: Invite students to bring their lived experiences and workplace knowledge into their studies. This can be just as powerful as the more famous exhortation to “get out of the classroom.” As Egizii sees it, “student-directed experiential learning provides a comfortable and relatable starting point from which they can then diverge their thinking.”

4. Show Students What They Can Achieve

For Eric Fretz, a lecturer at the University of Michigan, the key to launching his students on a successful path is setting the bar high, while at the same time helping them understand what is realistic to achieve. “You will never know if your students can jump six feet unless you set the bar at six feet,” he says.

His undergraduate students work in small teams to create a product in three months and generate sales from it. At the start of the semester, he typically sees a lot of grandiose ideas—a lot of “fluff and BS” as he calls it. Students also struggle with assessing the viability of their ideas.

To help, Fretz consults with each team extensively, filtering through ideas together until they can agree upon a feasible one that fulfills a real need. The real magic of his course is in the coaching and support he provides.

“People know when you’re investing in them and giving them your attention and energy,” Fretz says. He finds that coaching students in the beginning of the course helps assuage their concerns about embarking on an open-ended team project, while also supporting initiative and self-reliance.

In your classroom: Design ways to nudge your students outside their comfort zones, while also providing support. Like Fretz, you should set high expectations, but also adequately guide students.

5. Teach Students the Value of Changing Course

A key part of the entrepreneurial mindset is to be able to course-correct, learn from mistakes, and move on. Entrepreneurship professors position hurdles as learning opportunities. For example, Danner tells his students that his class is a laboratory for both aspiring and failing. He advises them to expect failure and think about how they are going to deal with it.

“A key part of the entrepreneurial mindset is to be able to course-correct, learn from mistakes, and move on.”

Ismail believes letting his students fail in class is the best preparation for the real world. He let one student team pursue a project for the entire semester around a product he knew had no potential. Two days before the end of the course, he told them as such. From his perspective, their frustration was the best learning experience they could have and the best training he could offer on what they will experience in real life. This reflects a key component of the entrepreneurial mindset— the ability to view mistakes as opportunities .

In your classroom: Build into your course some opportunities for students to make mistakes. Show them how mistakes are an opportunity to learn and improve. In entrepreneurship speak, this is called a “pivot.” Can you build in opportunities for students to face challenges and have to pivot in your course?

6. Communicate with Students Regularly to Establish New Ways of Thinking

Professor Neck realized that to nurture the entrepreneurial mindset in her students, she needed to provide them with opportunities to do so outside of class. She now encourages her students to establish a daily, reflective practice. She even designed a series of daily “mindset vitamins” that she sends to her students via the messaging platform WhatsApp. Students are not expected to reply to the messages, but rather to simply consume and absorb them.

Some messages relate specifically to entrepreneurship, such as: “How can you get started with nothing?” And others apply to life in general: “What has been your proudest moment in life so far? How can you create more moments like that? What did it feel like the last time you failed?”

In your classroom: Communicate with your students outside the classroom with messages that reinforce the mindset change you are seeking to achieve in your course. Social media and apps such as WhatsApp and Twitter make it easy to do so.

All Students Can Benefit from an Entrepreneurial Mindset

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that an entrepreneurial mindset is critical for addressing today’s problems. Adapting to risk, spotting opportunity, taking initiative, communicating and collaborating, being flexible, and problem solving—these are ways in which we have responded to the pandemic. And they’re all part of the entrepreneurial mindset. By instilling this way of thinking in our students, we will equip them to handle tomorrow’s challenges—as well as to identify and take advantage of future opportunities.

Thinking about which of these entrepreneurial approaches you can adopt in your own teaching may require you to redesign portions of your courses or even create a new course from scratch. We encourage you to be open to experimenting and trying out some of these ideas. Like the best entrepreneurs, don’t be afraid to fail.

Also, be open with your students. Let them know you are trying out some new things and solicit their feedback. If needed, you can always pivot your class and involve them in the exercise of co-creating something better together. In the process, you will also be modeling the entrepreneurial mindset for your students.

Amy Gillett is the vice president of education at the William Davidson Institute , a non-profit located at the University of Michigan. She oversees design and delivery of virtual exchanges, entrepreneurship development projects, and executive education programs. Over the past two decades, she has worked on a wide variety of global programs, including 10,000 Women , equipping over 300 Rwandan women with skills to scale their small businesses, and the NGO Leadership Workshops—one-week training programs held in Poland and Slovakia designed to enhance the managerial capability and sustainability of nongovernmental organizations in Central and Eastern Europe.

Kristin Babbie Kelterborn co-leads the Entrepreneurship Development Center (EDC) at the William Davidson Institute. She collaborates with the EDC’s faculty affiliates to design and implement projects that support entrepreneurs in building and growing their businesses in low- and middle-income countries.

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4 Inspiring Entrepreneurial Speeches You Need to Know About

I had a dream…..

Martin Luther, Churchill, JFK – all were able to deliver speeches that inspired millions to take action.

Public speaking is something I’m passionate about and when delivered correctly, can motivate and inspire you to take action, and do those extra sales calls/lines of code/hours in the office – even when your morale is low.

In this post I list four speeches that I keep going back to when I’m looking for motivation and inspiration.

Some you may already know some of these, and some are hopefully is a first time for you. Either way – all are guaranteed to inspire. This is a short post, as I’ll leave the talking to the men and women in the speeches below

Neil Gaimen – Addresses the University of the Arts

Because sometime it’s hard to remember to enjoy the ride

Eric Thomas – Secrets to Success 

FOr pure motivation, nothing beats Eric Thomas’s famed speech. He gave it in a classroom but I like this version someone did with an athlete training even more.

JK Rowling – Harvard Commencement

One of the most powerful speeches on failure out there(particularly the first half of the speech).

Steve Job’s Stanford Commencement Speech

One speech that probably needs no introduction. Essential listening for all. Stay foolish…

Your Turn: Which of these speeches did you enjoy? Are there any other inspiration speeches we should know about? Please share them in the comments below

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ENTREPRENEURS

13 Best Motivational Speeches for Entrepreneurs

Who couldn’t use a few of the best motivational speeches for entrepreneurs?

Business can be hard. Heck, life can be hard.

We’re all on a journey, and we’ve all been down in the dumps before, wondering if what we’re doing is really worth it.

Wondering if what we’re doing is really making an impact.

But, it’s important that we’re always moving forward. This is a lesson that I learned early in life.

I remember I was around 4 years old, and I was learning to ride my bike with my uncle and my father.

Of course, I fell off multiple times while I was learning to cycle, and I remember the time I cut my knee pretty badly.

At that point I really just wanted to quit and go home. But, my family told me: “you can’t quit now, you’re almost there. Just try it once more!”

You’ve probably heard that before too, right?

So, I got back on that bike. I didn’t want to, but you just need to power through and face your challenges head-on.

Sure enough, that was the first time that I rode that bike without any help.

After that, I was so glad I kept moving forward and that I never gave up.

Now, that probably wasn’t the motivational speech that you expected when you clicked on this article, but it’s evidence that we can do so much more than we think we’re capable of when we’re spurred on by others.

And that’s exactly why we’ve created this article – we’ve listed all of our favorite motivational speeches here, because we already know how much more you can achieve with a little bit of extra motivation.

• Will Smith – Pursuit of Happiness
• Al Pacino – Any Given Sunday
• Steve Jobs – 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech
• Matthew McConaughey – University of Houston Speech
• Sylvester Stallone – Balboa Speech
• Arnold Schwarzenegger – Famous Motivational Speech
• Richard St. John – 8 Secrets of Success
• Eric Thomas – I Can, I Will, I Must
• Elon Musk – USC Commencement Motivational Speech
• Ed Shereen – Being Weird is a Wonderful Thing
• Jim Carrey – Maharishi University Commencement Motivational Speech
• Denzel Washington – Fall Forward

Read more here .

© Copyright 2020 Morning Dough - All rights reserved

13 Best Motivational Speeches for Entrepreneurs (2024)

Who couldn’t use a few of the best motivational speeches for entrepreneurs?

Business can be hard. Heck, life can be hard.

We’re all on a journey, and we’ve all been down in the dumps before, wondering if what we’re doing is really worth it.

Wondering if what we’re doing is really making an impact.

But, it’s important that we’re always moving forward. This is a lesson that I learned early in life.

I remember I was around 4 years old, and I was learning to ride my bike with my uncle and my father.

Of course, I fell off multiple times while I was learning to cycle, and I remember the time I cut my knee pretty badly.

At that point I really just wanted to quit and go home. But, my family told me: “you can’t quit now, you’re almost there. Just try it once more!”

You’ve probably heard that before too, right?

So, I got back on that bike. I didn’t want to, but you just need to power through and face your challenges head-on.

Sure enough, that was the first time that I rode that bike without any help.

After that, I was so glad I kept moving forward and that I never gave up.

Now, that probably wasn’t the motivational speech that you expected when you clicked on this article, but it’s evidence that we can do so much more than we think we’re capable of when we’re spurred on by others.

And that’s exactly why we’ve created this article – we’ve listed all of our favorite motivational speeches here, because we already know how much more you can achieve with a little bit of extra motivation .

So, let’s jump into it!

Post Contents

Will Smith – Pursuit of Happiness

Al pacino – any given sunday, steve jobs – 2005 stanford commencement speech, matthew mcconaughey – university of houston speech, sheryl sandberg – harvard business school motivational speech, sylvester stallone – balboa speech, arnold schwarzenegger – famous motivational speech, richard st.john – 8 secrets of success, eric thomas – i can, i will, i must, denzel washington – fall forward, key takeaways, want to learn more.

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13 Best Motivational Speeches for Entrepreneurs

Considered one of the best motivational speeches, this famous motivational speech from the 2006 film, Pursuit of Happyness , features Will Smith and his son playing basketball.

At the start of the clip, you’ll see Smith’s son (his actual son, Jaden Smith) playing around with a basketball, and he shouts out, “I’m going pro!”

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After hearing this, Smith decides to try and level his son’s expectations, mentioning that he himself never really excelled at basketball, so his son shouldn’t expect to either.

His son is visibly disappointed by this comment, and Smith notices this.

Smith then proclaims: “don’t ever let somebody tell you that you can’t do something, not even me.”

“You got a dream, you gotta protect it. You want something, go get it. Period.”

This motivational speech is a special one. Even though both Will and Jaden Smith are acting, they’re still father and son, and you can see how this scene reflects their own family dynamic.

It’s a short motivational speech, but it’s one of the best motivational speeches of all time, in our opinion.

Al Pacino’s speech from the American Football drama, Any Given Sunday, is next up on our list.

This famous motivational speech really gets your blood flowing – perfect for watching before you tackle a difficult day .

The motivational speech revolves around the idea of inches being so important in American Football, even if we have the tendency to overlook them.

He talks about the different ways that his team can gain advantages over their opponents, even if it’s only an inch at a time.

He proclaims: “when we add up all those […] inches, that’s what makes the difference between winning and losing”.

This point is applicable throughout life, too – it’s the people who go the extra mile who tend to find success more often than not.

And sometimes, you won’t notice it at first, but like Pacino mentions, it’s the sum of all the small parts which lead you to victory.

Motivational speeches like this one pump you up when you need it most.

Steve Jobs, one of the key figures behind tech giant Apple’s success, is next up on our list of the best motivational speeches of all time.

In his 2005 Stanford commencement speech, the former Apple CEO dives deep into his own journey as an entrepreneur , and he speaks openly about the issues that he’s faced along the way and how he overcame them.

During this classic motivational speech, Jobs talks about how he was actually a college dropout and that this was one of the most important times of his life. 

He mentioned that he dropped out of college to take classes that he was truly interested in, rather than studying topics he wasn’t deeply passionate about.

One of those classes that he took up after dropping out was calligraphy. He was so compelled by the high standard of handwriting.

To many, this might seem like a strange choice, but he connects the experience that he gained from that class to the font choices that he installed on Apple computers.

If Jobs had never taken that calligraphy class, he wouldn’t have cared so much about a seemingly small detail, like fonts, but Apple was the first company to add different typefaces to their operating systems. 

He goes on to say: “You can’t connect the dots if you’re looking forward, you can only do it looking backwards. So, you need to keep moving forward and hope that the dots align somehow.”

The key message from this famous motivational speech is that we’re always learning. We’re always growing and finding out new information. It’s all about what we choose to do with that information that really defines us.

As Jobs said: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

Next up on our list of motivational speeches is Matthew McConaughey, with his commencement speech at the University of Houston.

The Oscar-winning actor delivers some very pertinent points during his speech, but the one that stuck out for me was how he spoke of joy being a “constant approach”.

McConaughey said: “Joy is always in process, it’s always under construction.”

He spoke of how he was previously judging his success on metrics that he thought were important to him, like the number of academy awards he won, or the amount of money his films grossed.

But, it was only when he decided to focus on the whole process of creating a film, and enjoying every aspect of it, that he found true success in those metrics.

It turned out that, when he took everything one step at a time, and truly enjoyed his craft, he found that things just fell into place.

“Define success for yourself.”

Find what you want to achieve, and enjoy the entire journey – not just the high points, but the lows too.

Matthew McConaughey ended up delivering one of the best motivational speeches from the past few years.

Sheryl Sandberg, the American entrepreneur, tech executive, author, and current COO of Facebook, is the next addition to our list of the best motivational speeches with her talk at the Harvard Business School in 2012.

Besides talking about her own experiences as an entrepreneur, and her work at Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg, Sandberg mentions a very pertinent idea. One that we can all do well to remember.

“Motivation comes from working on things that we care about.”

This is certainly true for entrepreneurship – those who are running businesses and working to tackle problems that engage them are more likely to find success.

And, according to Sandberg, it’s so important that we continue to work, because that’s the most important thing.

All in all, this is one of the best motivational speeches for students that we’ve seen.

Rocky Balboa , played by Sylvester Stallone, is a famed character best known for his courage, hard work, and determination.

In Rocky Balboa, the sixth film in the Rocky franchise, Stallone delivers one of the hardest-hitting motivational speeches of all time.

Stallone starts off the motivational speech by saying: “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows.”

He goes on to talk about the value of hard work and commitment and emphasizes that “it ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”

As an entrepreneur, this motivational speech really hits home. There will be struggles on your journey to success , but as Stallone says, it’s all about “how much you can take and keep moving forward, that’s how winning is done.”

Remember this when your back is up against the wall – winners never give up!

This is one of the most iconic motivational speeches. You’ll often find it in motivational speech mashup videos on YouTube or even on Spotify.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Austrian-American actor, entrepreneur, politician, and former My Olympia, is next up on our list of the most famous motivational speeches for entrepreneurs.

He starts his motivational speech with a simple, powerful message.

“Work your ass off.”

Schwarzenegger then discusses how having a goal was so pivotal for him on his journey to success in a variety of fields.

He also talks about how “only a quarter of people really enjoy what they’re doing in life.”

Schwarzenegger also believes that everybody should be constantly working to get closer to their main goal and properly utilize every hour of their day.

“Imagine if you worked on a business every day for an hour . Imagine how further along you would get.”

This is perhaps the most important message from this motivational speech – it’s down to us to make the most of our limited time on earth. And this message, which everybody can get behind, is why we believe this is one of the best motivational speeches of all time.

Next up on our list, we’ve got an infamous TED talk from Richard St.John – also one of the shortest motivational speeches that we’ve ever seen, but it sure is impactful.

St.John mentions at the start of the video that this talk is a condensed version of 7 years of research (including research from more than five hundred interviews with successful professionals).

One of the most interesting points that St.John mentions is that if you want to be successful at something, you need to “put your nose down in something and get damn good at it.”

But, the most motivational part of St.John’s speech for us was where he talks about passion.

He said: “if you do something you love then the money comes along later.”

This section of the motivational speech is especially relevant for entrepreneurs – if you’re building a brand , then try and be invested in it as much as possible – a commitment to the cause will really help you find success in the long run. 

When you’re trying to find success, you need to love what you do!

Eric Thomas is a fantastic speaker, and in this classic motivational speech, he empowers us to believe that we can always get through adversity, no matter what the challenge is.

Thomas repeats this line throughout the speech: “I can get through this. I will get through this. I must get through this.”

He also cleverly uses our loved ones as a source of inspiration in this motivational speech.

He asks us to focus on the 3 people we love the most and challenges us to question our own decisions regarding motivation.

“You gotta think about those people every day.”

“You have some days when you think about hitting the snooze button? […] The days you don’t feel like getting up, just think about them.”

Instead of being lazy and complacent, we need to think about our loved ones and question what they’d think if we were procrastinating 24/7 .

Honestly, it’s fine doing something for yourself, but knowing that you’ve made your loved ones proud just makes everything feel 10 times better. This is one of the main messages from this motivational speech. 

And that’s why this is one of the best motivational speeches of all time. It takes the onus away from working for yourself and instead focuses on putting in the work for people you couldn’t bear to let down.  

Elon Musk – USC Commencement Motivational Speech

Elon Musk is an icon of inspiration for countless people worldwide. Known for his out-of-the-box thinking and visionary technology, Musk shows us that anything is possible if we put our minds to it.

In the USC Commencement motivational speech, Elon immediately demonstrates his tendency to break away from the status quo. He tells us he was advised to stick to 3 items that he wanted to mention, but he’s going to share four.

Elon tells his listeners that they need to work proportionally to the accomplishments they want to achieve. “If you want to start a company, you need to work super hard.”

Elon’s speech here is compelling because it’s so authentic. He doesn’t talk about being lucky or following your gut instinct. Musk tells us that great things come from an equally astronomical amount of work.

Musk also acknowledges the power of great people, “all a company is, is a group of people that have gathered together.” Elon says that if you want a great company, you need a great team.

Musk’s third point is to “focus on signal over noise.” In other words, concentrate on developments that make the product better, “don’t just follow the trend.”

The final piece of advice from Elon’s speech? “Take risks.” Jump into new opportunities and pursue different things.

Ed Shereen – Being Weird is a Wonderful Thing

Ed Sheeran might not be the first person you think of when you visualize the world’s greatest thought leaders. Yet, he constantly moves millions of people with his music and his words.

At the 9 th Annual American Institute for Stuttering Benefit Gala, Sheeran talked about how Eminem helped him overcome his speech impediment.

Sheeran admits to being a “very, very weird child” with a birthmark on his face, large glasses, and no eardrum on one side of his head. He says that “stuttering was actually the least of my problems when I went to school,” but he found it extremely difficult.

Sheeran notes that not being able to express himself in the right way was his biggest concern with his stutter. However, when his dad bought him an Eminem CD when he was young. Listening to it helped him to learn how to speak fast and accomplish his stutter.

Ed’s insights are a great source of inspiration for entrepreneurs learning how to deal with the stress of public speaking and believing in themselves.

Now, Ed believes that “being weird is a wonderful thing”. He asks us to “embrace yourself, embrace your quirks, and embrace your weirdness.”

Jim Carrey – Maharishi University Commencement Motivational Speech

Jim Carrey’s commencement speech at the Maharishi University is filled with so much wisdom it’s difficult to decide which to focus on.

Perhaps the most important statement Jim made for entrepreneurs and business leaders was that “fear” will always be a big player in our lives. However, Jim notes, “you get to decide how much.” You can spend your life in fear, or you can follow your heart.

Jim says that countless people choose their path out of fear. They stick to what’s safe and easy because they’re afraid to ask, “what if?” However, Carrey says that the only way to live is to ask the universe for what you need.

Jim Carrey invites his listeners to “risk being seen in all of your glory.” He says that our job isn’t to figure out how we’re going to reach success, but to simply “open the door in your head” and walk through it when the time is right.

“You will fail at something. Accept it.”

In the last entry on our list of the best motivational speeches, Denzel Washington discusses failure.

But, Washington doesn’t shirk away from failure ; he embraces it.

He says that “every failed experiment is one step closer to success.”

This is certainly true when it comes to entrepreneurship . You learn so much from everything you do, whether it’s a win or a loss.

But, the most important thing isn’t necessarily winning or losing. It’s about getting out there and giving it everything you’ve got. That’s why this is one of our favorite motivational speeches about life. 

“Never be discouraged. Never hold back. And when you fall in life, remember this: fall forward.”

So, that’s our list of the best motivational speeches for entrepreneurs.

We hope you enjoyed those clips. We just want to highlight a couple of key points present across all of these motivational speeches.

• It’s important that you love what you do . Be invested. Be present. And be the best you can be.
• Failure isn’t a bad thing . If you learn from it, and continue to move forward, it can lead to great things.
• You need to want it. Entrepreneurship, along with many things in life, can be tough. You want it bad? Prove it.

Okay, that’s all from me today. Did I miss any motivational speeches off from this list? Let me know in the comments section – I read them all!

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8 Best Motivational Speeches of All Time for Entrepreneurs

The first steps of any new venture are the hardest. From opening your doors to signing your first client, building your team to hiring your first marketing agency — every choice you make has substantial consequences for your business. 

Some choices could propel your business forward while others could set you back years or force you to close your doors.

Making these pivotal decisions is tough; that’s why entrepreneurs like yourself need to find motivation where you can. 

Seek out advice and guidance from those that have come before you. Start by watching some of the best motivational speeches that we’ve ever seen.

#1: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Speech that Broke the Internet

“I went to college. I went and worked out 5 hours a day. And I was working in construction. Because in those days in bodybuilding, there was no money. I didn’t have the money for food supplements or anything. So, I had to go to work. So, I worked in construction. I went to college and worked out in a gym. And at night from 8 o’clock at night to 12 midnight, I went to acting class 4 times a week. I did all that. There was not one single minute that I wasted.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger's speech was published on the Milligan Brothers YouTube channel on May 2, 2019. At the time this post was written, the video had already gotten more than three million views.

#2: J. K. Rowling’s Harvard Commencement Speech

“Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.”

J.K. Rowling is a well-known name in almost every household, but there was a time when that was not the case. Before she achieved success with her Harry Potter books, she was rejected by several publishers and was in a bad state financially.

Facing bankruptcy and constant rejection, it would have been easier for her to give up, but she carried on. She didn’t let her failures stop her. She used them to push her closer to success. 

You can find the text of her speech published in the Harvard Gazette.

#3: Will Smith in Pursuit of Happyness

“Don’t ever let somebody tell you you can’t do something—not even me. You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can’t do it. You want something? Go get it. Period.”

In this moving scene from the movie “Pursuit of Happyness,” Will Smith tells his son he can do anything. Smith plays a real-life character, a single father who is struggling to take care of his son throughout overwhelming adversity. 

While playing basketball, Chris—played by Will Smith—finds himself doling out some harsh criticism to his son, but he quickly recovers. After seeing the discouraged look on his son’s face, he used his harsh words to deliver a motivational speech to his son that included admitting he was wrong for what he had previously said.

#4: Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech

“And 17 years later, I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So, I decided to drop out and trust that it was all going to work out ok. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.”

Steve Jobs gave this speech in 2005 during the Stanford Commencement Address. He goes on to discuss how he fell in love with calligraphy by dropping in on a class teaching it. That one class is what later inspired him to develop typography and incorporate it into the Mac. 

#5: Al Pacino in Any Given Sunday

“I don’t know what to say really. Three minutes till the biggest battle in our professional lives, and it all comes down to today. Either we heal, as a team, or we’re gonna crumble. Inch by inch, play by play, till we’re finished. We’re in hell right now, gentlemen—believe me. And, we can stay here and get the s_____ kicked out of us, or, we can fight our way back.”

 Al Pacino delivers this inspiration speech in the movie “Any Given Sunday.” In this movie, the main character DAmato—played by Al Pacino—is trying to motivate the players on his football team to work together to win their game after they had suffered from three back-to-back losses.

#6: Sheryl Sandberg at Harvard University

“It used to be that in order to reach more people than you could talk to in a day, you had to be rich and famous and powerful, be a celebrity, a politician, a CEO, but that’s not true today. 

Now ordinary people have a voice, not just those of us lucky to go to HBS, but anyone with access to Facebook,  Twitter , a mobile phone. This is disrupting traditional power structures and leveling traditional hierarchy.

Voice and power are shifting from institutions to individuals, from the historically powerful to the historically powerless, and all of this is happening so much faster than I could have imagined when I was sitting where you are today, and Mark Zuckerberg was 11 years old.”

Sheryl Sandberg speaks to the Harvard graduating class of 2012 and tells her story of how she struggled to get on track with her career in the Silicon Valley back in 2001.

She explains how the timing was terrible because the bubble had crashed, and companies were laying people off. Sheryl goes on to explain how she overcame the challenges to get to where she is today.

#7: Richard St. John’s Motivation TED Talk

“And it all started one day on a plane, on my way to TED, seven years ago. And in the seat next to me was a high school student, a teenager, and she came from a really poor family. And she wanted to make something of her life, and she asked me a simple little question. She said, “What leads to success?” And I felt really badly because I couldn’t give her a good answer. So, I get off the plane and I come to TED, and I think, “Jeez, I’m in the middle of a room of successful people, so why don’t I ask them what helped them succeed, and pass it on to kids?”

Richard St. John ​ delivered this speech as his TED talk. The video was published to TED’s YouTube channel on January 6, 2007, and it’s gotten over 2.5 million views. In this video, he provides his secrets of success in 8 words, in 3 minutes.

#8: Gary Vaynerchuck’s Hustle

“So, first of all, it’s different for everyone, but this whole notion of like, “where’s the time?” I just think people are loaded with excuses. I think that the vainer nation thinks they’re hustling, and straight to your face, I think 99.9% of you are not. Everybody has time, stop watching f_____ Lost…”

Gary Vaynerchuck’s Video “The Most Important Word Ever” stresses how important it is to utilize every single minute of your day to reach your goals by keeping up the hustle and never giving up.

Are You Feeling Motivated and Inspired Yet?

I hope you found these speeches as motivating as I did and that you’re ready to start your new venture with a renewed sense of energy and focus.

Just know that going forward, anything is possible when you set your mind on something, and you go after it with no excuses and a determination to succeed. 

Don’t let failures hold you back. Failures help to propel you forward and put you on the right path by showing you the wrong one.

At Sparkitive, we know just how important having a well-thought-out and proven plan is to the success of your new service-based business.

That’s why we created a free guide that gives you the gift of a step-by-step plan you can follow to generate new leads and turn them into long-term, loyal clients.

Get your free copy of our guide now: Fast Track Your Business: The 5-Step Marketing Plan for Professional Services Firms .

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Speech - Ethiopia Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn's Keynote Address - Launch of Ethiopia's Entrepreneurship Development Programme

April 8, 2018.

Excellencies Ministers

Mr. Eugene Owusu, Resident Representative, UNDP

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to thank the organizers for allowing me to make a key note address to a workshop that will address one of the most important topics in our national development agenda.  It is my hope and expectation that the deliberations you will be making this afternoon will help spell out the key aspects of entrepreneurship and enterprise development that the government should focus on in its effort to achieve the objectives clearly identified in our Growth and Transformation Plan. The workshop will also set the ground for the launching of an entrepreneurship Development Centre of Ethiopia to be tasked with providing entrepreneurial skills training and mentorship to tens of thousands of small and macro enterprises.  The centre will also help in the creation of hundreds of thousands of new jobs and the stimulation of economic growth.

The project is expected to create self and wage employment opportunities, bring equal development, improve the income of the society and lay foundation for industrial development.

Excellencies,

Ladies and gentlemen ,

This project is very important for a host of reasons that have significant bearing on the national development endeavors that we are undertaking in this country.

As you may well know, one of the challenges we have in this country that stands in the way of ensuring rapid industrial growth is the acute lack of social capital and particularly that of entrepreneurship skills.  The largest chunks of our graduates are very much wanting in this area and there is a widespread belief that only the government can afford to distribute jobs for millions of people.  Not only is this wrong and infeasible in a country every resource needs to be deployed in the most efficient manner, but it is also impossible to imagine the country sustaining its current growth spiral with a balance sheet that is heavy on unproductive government expenditure.

But more importantly, without the development of entrepreneurial skills by hundreds of thousands of our youth, the kind of equitable distribution of wealth that the government is very keen on achieving cannot be realized. And the country’s industrial development will be stunted without the required entrepreneurship skills and enterprise.

The project is also important in that it targets the tens of thousands of small and Micro Enterprises as well as hundreds of thousands of youth and women.

Our GTP puts higher emphasis on the development of Micro and Small Enterprises not only because they are the most viable way of creative massive employment opportunities but also because these are the most reliable drivers of industrial development.

With the number of graduates growing by leaps and bounds and the number of the youth population bulging every year, dependable ways of creating massive employment opportunities is an imperative.

As much as our huge youth population can be a source of strength and growth, it could also be a source of vulnerability and social tension unless we are in a position to offer job opportunities that can absorb this huge chunk of our population.

This project will not be confined to providing training entrepreneurship skills important as that may be.  It should strive towards bringing about attitudinal change in our society. Without a change in the attitude of the society and the development of social capital sustaining our growth spiral is almost impossible. The comprehensive effort by the government and other stakeholders should be geared towards this end.  The project should therefore focus not only on the creation of an Entrepreneurship Development Centre and the provision of entrepreneurship development training.  But it also needs to engage in the provision of business development services that will see the creation of new Small and Micro Enterprises and the enhancement of existing ones.  Particular emphasis also needs to be made on youth and women entrepreneurs as the most critical stakeholders in the development process.

Equally important, the project should also work on promoting partnerships and stakeholder engagement that aims at a much broader policy dialogue on the role of SMEs in the structural transformation of our economy.

The government on its part will continue to further strengthen its comprehensive efforts to ensure the expansion and enhancement of SMEs. In this regard more emphasis will be made to the development of working clusters and production facilities; the encouragement and provisions of credit and marketing support; and dismantling constraints that inhibit growth of Micro and small enterprises into medium and large scale competitive enterprises.  But all along, the onus is on the SMEs to continue to develop their entrepreneurial skills to remain competitive and the government will not be in the business of propping up enterprises that are not competitive in the name of creating employment opportunity.  That we believe is counter productive; hence the need for initiatives such as the one we are going to deliberate on this afternoon.

Excellences,

I recognize there are a number of initiatives here and there public and private alike that purportedly are aimed at developing social capital such as entrepreneurship skills. While these efforts are generally commendable, success however requires that our efforts be harmonized in such a way that they ultimately lead to the economic empowerment of our youth and women without which our growth cannot be sustained.  That is why this particular project is of primary importance to my government.  We believe that all our efforts to lift this country out of poverty and to set it on a path of industrial development will require all the attention we can afford.  It is also my belief that this workshop will set that meaningful process in motion. 

As I conclude, I would like to once again thank the UNDP for its generous support to our development endeavors and to my dear brother Eugene for his usual can-do attitude. It is also my hope and expectation that your deliberations this afternoon will help further inform our policies and contribute to addressing some of our challenges.

I now officially launch Ethiopia’s Entrepreneurship Development Program.

I thank you.

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The Impact of Entrepreneurship

• In AACSB’s most recent Innovations That Inspire initiative, business schools outline their societal impact activities that align with their missions while addressing concerns in their local communities.
• Schools described innovations such as a lecture series for Ukrainian refugees, an informational hub for Black business owners, and a program for Chinese entrepreneurs at the base of the pyramid.
• Through such efforts, business schools are deploying their students’ talent and their faculty’s expertise in ways that lead to lasting real-world change.

  Entrepreneurship can bring prosperity to families, communities, and whole nations. What can business schools do to bring entrepreneurship education to the groups that need it most?

That question was answered by a number of schools that participated in AACSB’s 2024 Innovations That Inspire initiative, which recognizes programs that will shape the future of business education. Through a sampling of just a few of their submissions, we show how entrepreneurship education targeted at specific populations can have profound societal impact and change the courses of many lives.

Training for Refugees

The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine not only has killed more than 30,000 Ukrainians, but also has displaced millions of Ukrainian citizens. To provide aid to London-based refugees, the University College London (UCL) School of Management has launched The Next Generation of Entrepreneurs for Ukraine .

Through the free seven-week lecture series, participants gain the skills and knowledge they need to transform business ideas into viable ventures that will help rebuild their country once the war is over. The lecture series was selected by AACSB as a highlighted innovation for 2024.

The initiative came about after the UCL School of Management partnered with other academic institutions in the Academic Sanctuary Scheme to host visiting scholars from Ukrainian universities. The lecture series was developed by Nataliia Hrytsiuk, an associate professor from Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University, who has researched the best practices in U.K. entrepreneurship. She presented her findings during the first seven lectures, which were held in October and November 2023. Other speakers included Ukrainian entrepreneurs and academics.

In addition to providing examples of successful startups in the U.K., lectures covered the art of forming teams, the tools needed to carry out competitive market analysis, and the strategy behind creating value propositions. At the end of the program, aspiring entrepreneurs could participate in a Pitch Day where finalists competed for monetary prizes.

All lectures were delivered in person and in Ukrainian to break down language and cultural barriers and to maximize networking opportunities. To make it easy for people to attend, events were held in the evening and offered free childcare.

Between lectures, participants received group and individual mentoring from Ukrainian entrepreneurs and UCL faculty. Participants also had access to workshops, UCL’s Innovation and Enterprise free office space, and a system that matched refugees with UCL entrepreneurs. To enhance networking opportunities, events were run with Level 39 , a European tech accelerator, and GenUK’s Ukraine program, which is aimed at female entrepreneurs. Students also could take complimentary English language lessons provided by a nongovernmental agency.

Participants who completed the program received certificates of attendance, gained access to GenUK’s Restart Ukraine program, and were eligible to apply to UCL’s Hatchery incubator to receive up to 24 months of support for their new businesses.

For the future, the school plans to offer the lecture series twice a year and is considering an online format to reach refugees outside of London. UCL will invite former participants to return as guest speakers and organize networking opportunities for previous and current participants. The school is considering replicating the program to aid people from other displaced communities.

A Spanish-Language Podcast

According to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce , Latinos create businesses three times faster than any other group in the United States. Between 2007 and 2012, 86 percent of new small businesses in the U.S. were owned by Latinos. Yet Latino business owners have limited access to capital and other resources: Only 3 percent of America’s 4.7 million Hispanic-owned businesses have achieved more than 1 million USD in sales, and many Latinos lack reliable access to high-speed internet services.

One resource that could remove barriers for Latino entrepreneurs? Education. To meet this need, the Jack C. Massey College of Business at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, created the Latino Emprendedor Podcast . (Emprendedor means “entrepreneur.”) Four podcasts were produced last year, and more are in the works.

The podcasts are delivered in Spanish by two co-hosts who have deep roots in both the business and the Latino communities. José González is an entrepreneur and an associate professor of entrepreneurship and management at Belmont College. He established a Nashville-based Spanish-language entrepreneurial training program called Negocio Próspero. Co-host Frank González is managing director of Crown Solutions Spanish at the global financial literacy ministry Crown Financial Ministries and has held roles with other organizations devoted to the development of Latin American leaders.

The two men discuss topics that include developing an entrepreneurial mindset, understanding the difference between an idea and an opportunity, launching a business, and dealing with failure. The goal of the podcasts is to empower listeners to solve problems, innovate their businesses, and create a positive impact on their surrounding communities.

A Platform for Black Entrepreneurs

COVID-19 had a devastating effect on many small businesses. In Canada, where a significant proportion of such enterprises are owned by Black entrepreneurs, the pandemic also shone a spotlight on an uncomfortable truth: Black business owners face systemic barriers that include discrimination, lack of access to capital and networks, and unconscious biases.

In response, the Federal Government of Canada has provided 400 million CAD (approximately 296 million USD) to fund the Black Entrepreneurship Program . One of the program’s three pillars is the Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub (BEKH), a platform that brings together Black entrepreneurs, not-for-profit organizations, community organizations, academic institutions, and researchers.

Launched in December 2021, BEKH provides research and statistics about Black entrepreneurs, the businesses they are engaged in, and the resources they need to grow sustainably. This research can inform policies and programs aimed at promoting Black entrepreneurship.

BEKH is co-led by the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, and the Dream Legacy Foundation , a Toronto-based philanthropic organization that works with underrepresented groups. BEKH was selected by AACSB as a highlighted innovation for 2024.

The knowledge platform consists of a central hub supported by regional hubs across the country, each one headed by a postsecondary institution. The hubs work with community organizations, an advisory board, and a research advisory committee to prioritize the unique needs of various regions.

In its first year, BEKH established six regional hubs and research platforms, secured additional funding for development and growth, and initiated a community-led symposium for idea creation. It also actively engaged with community-serving organizations and national bodies, including Statistics Canada, the Business Development Bank of Canada, and Export Development Canada.

In the coming year, BEKH plans to undertake three large-scale national studies to create a better understanding of Black entrepreneurship in Canada. A quantitative study will produce numerical data around Black entrepreneurship; a qualitative study will generate personas that use storytelling techniques to explain the experiences of Black business owners; and an ecosystem mapping project will create a geographic map of Black entrepreneurs to foster visibility and promote connections. The goal is to create a more equitable business environment that enables Black entrepreneurs to thrive.

Education to Eradicate Poverty

The School of Management at Guangdong University of Technology in China is dedicated to achieving one of the key aims of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals : ending poverty. To that end, in 2009, the school debuted a three-part responsible management education framework called “From Classrooms to Fields.”

One component of that framework is a focus on entrepreneurship at the base of the pyramid (BoP). While students are introduced to a variety of diverse entrepreneurship initiatives, they are encouraged to develop innovations that will serve BoP populations and keep people out of poverty.

One success story comes from Che Zhou. As a student in 2014, he explored ways to help herb farmers in the western mountainous areas of China. He set up an e-commerce trading platform that involves more than 3,000 herb providers, which accounts for 12 percent of the trading volume of bulk traditional Chinese herbs sold in the region. More than 50 students from the college have participated in this endeavor. Che Zhou’s efforts have resulted in an average income increase of 4,170 RMB (about 580 USD) for each of the participating farmers.

The School of Management aims to reduce poverty in two additional ways:

• By weaving sustainable development principles into the curriculum. Students learn theories of social responsibility through required courses on sustainability and green e-commerce, modules on sustainable development that are included in other courses, and off-site opportunities to see sustainable development in action. Faculty are encouraged to develop sustainability-related cases, some of which are collected into national management case databases for other schools to use.
• By motivating faculty and students to join charitable endeavors. Students must earn two credits by engaging in a minimum of 20 hours of philanthropic work per semester. They are encouraged to participate in the social responsibility activities of two student clubs, and faculty are urged to act as advisors to such organizations. In addition, the school provides monetary support to two primary schools in the remote mountainous region of Guangdong Province.

Through these efforts, the school encourages students to embrace social responsibility, blend commercial and societal interests, and create sustainable value.

Community Opportunities

Several business schools have created initiatives aimed at bringing entrepreneurship education to underserved populations in their own neighborhoods, and they described their efforts in submissions to this year’s Innovations That Inspire.

One example comes from the College of Business and Economics at Towson University in Baltimore, which has partnered with Cristo Rey Jesuit High School to teach basic entrepreneurship skills to financially disadvantaged ninth-graders. During the four-week Cristo Rey Leadership Foundations Program , young students learn the concepts of entrepreneurship and gain experience developing ventures designed to solve real-world problems.

Speakers include entrepreneurs who hail from Cristo Rey’s own community. In addition, student interns from the College of Business—some of them alums of Cristo Rey—act as mentors and guides for teams of high school students.

Since the program launched two years ago, 135 Cristo Rey students have been exposed to the world of entrepreneurship, and two have joined Towson’s StarTUp accelerator. The College of Business has received grant money from U.S.-based company State Farm Insurance to continue the program, and it has become a resource for other area high schools that want to replicate its model.

A second example comes from the Else School of Management at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. About 14 years ago, the school launched the ELSEWORKS entrepreneurship program, dedicated to revitalizing Midtown, a nearby socioeconomically challenged inner city community. Led by faculty, staff, and alumni, the program functions like a business consultancy to provide Midtown businesses with assistance in areas such as strategy, accounting, market research, and event planning.

Since 2011, Millsaps students have provided consulting services to two incubators in Midtown; helped develop two community gathering spaces—a coffee shop and a beer garden; secured funds for three Midtown businesses; organized a quarterly event for business owners; and provided other support. About 160 Millsaps students have served as ELSEWORKS business analysts and roughly 400 students have worked on classroom projects that provided solutions to Midtown businesses.

The impact has been measurable: According to a study conducted by ELSEWORKS students, the number of assets in the neighborhood—consisting of houses, businesses, and properties in suitable living conditions—increased by 74 percent over 10 years. At the same time, students have seen firsthand how community engagement links to economic development.

‘Entrepreneurship as Survival’

Anita Roddick, social entrepreneur and founder of The Body Shop, once said, “Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking.”

Today’s business schools—and the populations they serve through entrepreneurship education—would clearly agree.

All submissions to AACSB's Innovations That Inspire program are collected in DataDirect for members to explore for additional insights and inspiration.

• entrepreneurship
• innovations that inspire
• societal impact