As Global Entrepreneurship Week comes to a close and I wrap up my own GEW travels (look for a recap of my inspiring week in the days to come), I find it fitting to conclude this annual celebration with a notion that will carry on. Entrepreneurship isn’t defined by working within a specific technology space or raising any amount of funding—it’s a mindset. And that mindset, with the appropriate educational approach, can be taught.
The latest Kauffman Sketchbook illustrates how the Ice House Entrepreneurship Program develops the critical thinking, communication and problem-solving skills that help any individual think like an entrepreneur. The video features Gary Schoeniger, founder and CEO of the Entrepreneurial Learning Initiative, exposing some of the misconceptions and myths about the entrepreneurial process that have limited the efficacy, scale and scope of programs designed to teach entrepreneurship. But this program, based on the timeless lessons from the life experiences of Clifton Taulbert, a successful entrepreneur and acclaimed author, is framed in the best practices of entrepreneurship education today—namely an experiential based, flipped classroom model, focusing on the beliefs and assumptions that drive successful behavior.
The video serves as a timely reminder, at the conclusion of a week in which a diverse world came together to celebrate a common idea, of the ability of entrepreneurship to empower ordinary people to do extraordinary things.