LAHORE – The role of entrepreneurship and an entrepreneurial culture in economic and social development has become increasingly apparent as it greatly contributed to economic development. With the objective to promote entrepreneurial culture in Pakistan, recently Centre for Entrepreneurial Development, IBA Karachi and GIFT University Gujranwala signed a Memorandum of Understanding, says a press release.
The main purpose of this MoU was to establish a strong liaison and collaboration between GIFT and IBA. The parties have agreed to work jointly for the promotion of entrepreneurship in the region. 
For developing entrepreneurial culture, two institutions have agreed to jointly establish a Centre for Entrepreneurship Development at GIFT University. This Centre will work for the enhancement of entrepreneurship activities in the area. It will accelerate culture of entrepreneurship amongst students, youth and public at large. The students will carry out research for collection and dissemination of information required for supporting start up ventures. The centre will provide technical and professional help and advice for nurturing new enterprises. Awareness sessions, seminars and training programmes will be conducted as it fosters the entrepreneurship and builds capacity of the SMEs. Through synergistic collaborations of academia, industry and government institutions, the spirit of entrepreneurship will be enhanced.
Rector GIFT University Dr Iqbal Tahir and Dr Ishrat Hussain Director IBA had signed this MoU. Nadeem Mustafa from GIFT and Dr Shahid Quershi from CED IBA were also present at this ceremony. This MoU will enhance the relationship between GIFT and IBA and students learning will be improved.

Article source: http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/business/10-Mar-2012/iba-gift-sign-mou

How can a bus tour, a book, and a crowdfunding initiative help reverse the trend of youth unemployment and underemployment? Scott Gerber and the folks at the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) believe their new #FixYoungAmerica campaign will spark an entrepreneurial revolution in 2012 and be part of the solution to restore the “American dream” to millions of young people.

Taking it to the streets

Of course you can’t have a revolution without a cross-country bus tour. Led by Washington-based nonprofit group Young Invincibles, #FixYoungAmerica will visit 10 cities including Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston to raise awareness of an initiative they’re spearheading called The State of Young America which is a study they did with Demos. They’ll also be focusing on the state of youth underemployment and helping the YEC lobby for the Youth Entrepreneurship Act. 

Among the items on their agenda, they’re targeting student loan forgiveness for young entrepreneurs, supporting franchise ownership for veterans and youth, developing a set of best practices for colleges to graduate more entrepreneurs, and expanding Self-Employment Assistance (SEA).

On Thursday, the entrepreneurial movement gained momentum when the House of Representatives passed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act by an overwhelming margin, voting 390-23 to approve the legislation. If enacted, the bills would make it easier for small businesses and entrepreneurs to raise money. 

Integrating entrepreneurship into the college curriculum  

In a 2011 survey conducted by the YEC, 88% of respondents indicated entrepreneurship education is vitally important given the new economy; however, 74% of those students felt they had no access to entrepreneurship resources on campus.

Although campuses such as the University of Rochester, Wake Forest University, Howard University, Florida International University, University of Texas at El Paso, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, have been able to make entrepreneurship education available across their campuses thanks to grants made possible by the Kauffman Foundation, the results of the YEC survey underscore the need for more support.

Creating an entrepreneurial brain trust

At the heart of the #FixYoungAmerica campaign is the idea of bringing together 33 of the country’s most hardworking entrepreneurs to help solve youth un- or underemployment, which has is at the highest it has been in 60 years.

“The Young Entrepreneur Council’s #FixYoungAmerica initiative has brought together many of America’s smartest entrepreneurs, academics, philanthropists, and politicians, all of whom have executed real and proven solutions in their respective fields to help solve youth unemployment,” said Gerber. “It is time we change the negative discourse surrounding youth unemployment in this country into one of practical solutions rather than partisanship and rhetoric. We aim to fuel that positive conversation and encourage others to actively participate.”

Harnessing technology to propel a movement

LegalZoom gave #FixYoungAmerica’s crowdfunding initiative a shot in the arm by ponying up $20,000 out of the gate, which means they’re well on their way of achieving their fundraising goal of $30,000–and they still have more than 50 days left in their campaign. 

If there’s one group that’s perfectly poised to leverage social media to start a conversation around an hot button issue, it’s Gen Y. In addition to their crowdfunding efforts, #FixYoungAmerica has developed a Pass The Baby campaign to get people to share ideas and spread the word across their social networks.

What about you? Do you think entrepreneurship can help reverse recent trends in youth unemployment?

Find Shawn at shawngraham.me or continue the conversation on Twitter.

[Image: The Young Entrepreneur Council]

Article source: http://www.fastcompany.com/1823477/entrepreneurship-is-good-for-what-ails-the-us

Entrepreneurship is the one of the most popular clubs at U.S. business schools these days, and the field is gaining momentum. As more educational institutions dive into social entrepreneurship, we’d like to share with them and their students one of the primary ingredients for turning promising ideas into success stories.

With more than a decade working with field-based social entrepreneurs from the developing world through our Global Social Benefit Incubator, we feel our mentorship program is the secret sauce.

Mentors help social entrepreneurs build their businesses, often by learning with them how to overcome obstacles that range from government antipathy and a dearth of distribution channels to a lack of talented human capital. These are radically different than the challenges they have faced in their Silicon Valley careers.

Forty executives, financiers, consultants, and venture capitalists share their entrepreneurial expertise and business acumen with social entrepreneurs in the poorest countries, helping them expand revenues faster than expenses while increasing the number of lives affected. Social enterprises only help the poor if they’re sustainable, and they help more people if they can scale up.

These advisers have founded Nasdaq companies, funded startups, and run divisions of well-known companies. They excel at what we teach—value proposition, business models, operations, growth plans, and a clear presentation to potential investors. They have to listen well, be culturally sensitive, and create rapport and trust.

They often are humbled by efforts required to expand social enterprises in markets where customers live on less than $4 a day—the “Base of the Pyramid,” in C.K. Prahalad’s terms.

Unlike mentoring a young, eager American startup—for whom the best infrastructure, technology, resources, and financial capital are within relatively easy reach—mentoring startups in the developing world requires a different perspective for these seasoned leaders.

One mentor was called on to help a woman entrepreneur in Africa whose mission is to provide feminine napkins to girls, enabling them to attend and complete school. The business plan crafted was a beautiful one—until the area’s water source dried up, forcing the manufacturing employees to walk further and further for water, thereby missing work. New plan: The business is moving locations, for this and other reasons.

A perfectly sound clean-water business plan was challenged by the fact that villagers saw no problem with the cloudy water they’d ingested all their lives. Solution: Market the water as something to serve to “picky” out-of-town visitors, eventually turning clean water into a new status symbol in the village.

One of our social entrepreneurs wanted to make and distribute soap to support “slum women” in tsunami-devastated Southern India. His mentor helped him instead start a home-care assistance business by demonstrating that leveraging the women’s existing home-care skills was a better approach than launching an untested soap business.

Mentors routinely remark that they learn more from social entrepreneurs than vice versa. They feel privileged to work with ambitious people committed to making an impact on the lives of the poor. As the chief executive of a San Francisco startup said: “This is the best work that I do—I love it.”

We believe that mentors are an essential ingredient for any effective social entrepreneurship training program. For us, it’s a great way to transmit the Silicon Valley “startup DNA” to help transform the poorest countries into emerging markets.

Join the discussion on the Bloomberg Businessweek Business School Forum, visit us on Facebook, and follow @BWbschools on Twitter.

Article source: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-09/social-entrepreneurship-why-mentors-matter

Businesses, even those outside the realm of greedy corporate drones, are designed to earn a profit. Other priorities, like environmental sustainability or job creation, are reached only through happy accidents or marketing ploys to help companies make more money. Surely, if you’re raking in the dough, you can’t be making a difference—at least not on purpose.

This outdated vision of commerce has multiple origins, but if asked, most students of social enterprise will point an accusing finger at Milton Friedman’s 1970 New York Times Magazine essay “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits.� Friedman’s point (though slightly more nuanced than the title or its interpretation might suggest) was that corporate executives have a responsibility to maximize profit. Frittering away money on other objectives—say, fighting poverty—would cheat stockholders, employees, and customers out of cash that is rightfully theirs.

Article source: http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=524206c7-387c-4651-b228-c0ddb0b1a0e8