Let us empower the next generation to use business as a force for good

We need a more resilient, green and human economy. How to manage this transition? – Let us empower the next generation. Now!

We are in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. The political debate is revolving around the question of how politics can stabilise the situation. We would like to enrich the discussion with an appeal on how best to revitalize our economy: Empower the younger generation to do so!

We should pro-actively create the conditions for a much larger number of young people to become entrepreneurs. We are sure that this will lead to an amazing set of business models that make the world more resilient and sustainable. We’d all benefit from the positive, solution-oriented spirit which results from being an entrepreneur and which helps to prevent or cure future crises.

Find below three inspiring initiatives which help to boost a positive entrepreneurial mindset at schools, at universities and across a the continent with the youngest population in the world.

Promoting a positive entrepreneurial mindset among school children – NFTE

The non-profit organisation NFTE – Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship is all about sharing the passion for entrepreneurship among youth. NFTE’s conviction: We need an entrepreneurial mindset and a profound understanding of what entrepreneurship can do for society so that the upcoming generation can solve the problems that arise – whether climate protection, financial security or strengthening social cohesion in society.

True to this motto, NFTE has been committed to the integration of entrepreneurship as an educational content in schools since 1987. First in the USA, and later internationally. NFTE is active in 15 countries, since 2004 also in Germany. A total of 1.1 million students were accompanied, 27,900 of them in Germany.

«Teaching entrepreneurship changes the way people think, changes their lives, changes the world. We must equip young people with the vision of an innovator and the courage of a founder – the skills to excel in an innovative economy.» NFTE

The aim of the NFTE association is to strengthen self-confidence, initiative, and entrepreneurial thinking and acting among young people, especially among schoolchildren* with rather poor starting opportunities, who are strengthened in their personality by the NFTE programme and are thus better equipped to overcome their social disadvantage.

NFTE USA developed 8 modules in which the students learn to think like an entrepreneur and in which they develop their own business idea for a product or service. The courses take place partly online and partly in the schools. The culmination is the local and then national competition, where the students present their projects in presentations. The winners receive seed capital, which they can either invest in the implementation of the business project or use for their further education. The German NFTE has adopted the programme in this way, and organises an annual European competition together with the European NFTE organisations. In Europe, there is the Youthstart network, which unites the European national NFTE organisations and other entrepreneurship initiatives.

In a three-day training for teachers, they can distinguish themselves from NFTE to Certified Entrepreneurship Teachers, who carry out the NFTE course material with the students. Further advanced courses are possible. In Germany, the association works with more than 800 schools and supports about 2,200 teachers. Given the 750,000 or so teachers employed in Germany, there is still plenty of room for improvement.

With its “World Series of Innovation” programme, the organisation has also developed a series of online challenges for schoolchildren, the aim of which is to develop business models that make a targeted contribution to the 17 UN sustainability goals. The digital program is partly supported by company partnerships that contribute their own impulses or mentoring services.

Students building purpose-driven social startups – Enactus 

With 72,000 active students across 1,730 campuses, Enactus is one of the world’s largest student networks – and perhaps the largest social entrepreneurship network worldwide. At Enactus, it is all about entrepreneurship and social innovation as a force to make the world a better place:

• Entrepreneurial – igniting business innovation with integrity and passion
• Action – the experience of social impact that sparks social enterprise.
• Us – student, academic and business leaders collaborating to create a better world.

Every year, students* from 35 countries join together in project groups and engage in some 3,800 social entrepreneurship projects which they have designed with the support of the academic tutors or some of the partnering 550 enterprises. All projects refer to the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, with a particular focus on improving people’s quality of life and protecting and preserving our environment. This is achieved, among other things, by the teams creating jobs, driving business innovation and providing new think-out-of-the-box solutions for the social impact sector.

«Engage the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders to use innovation and business principles to improve the world» – Enactus Mission Statement

Enactus has been active in Germany already since 2003 and since then has seen a continuous increase in the number of universities, members and partners – Enactus teams are now active in 32 university campuses, engaging around 1,900 students. Students can apply to join a team or even found a new team at a university. They can participate in existing projects, in the Enactus association itself, or by jointly putting a new idea into practice. The projects of the young innovators are supported and promoted by former Enactus team members (alumni), professors and lecturers at universities as well as managers and experts from well-known companies and institutions in an advisory capacity. For example, weekend workshops on team building, coaching on financial topics or feedback rounds for the final presentations at the competitions are organised and financed by sponsors. When a student leaves the university, he or she can continue to participate in the Enactus network as an alumni, support younger students and projects and also benefit from the network itself.

«We celebrate diversity of culture, abundance of ideas and the synergy of cross-generational leadership in action»

Partners, sponsors and supporters of Enactus Germany include corporations, medium-sized companies, institutions and private individuals such as KPMG, BASF, Ernst&Young, Haribo, Franz Haniel & Cie, Villeroy&Boch, Procter & Gamble, Bahlsen, Peek&Cloppenburg, Allianz Global Investors, Deutsche Bildung AG and the GreenTech Awards.

The Enactus project classic fights plastic waste pollution in Southeast Asia. In November, it won the Gexsi Impact Challenge Award.

Ideally, each Enactus project will result in an independent company that is financially self-sustaining and is spun off. It is then possible for the project or company to be supported by student Enactus teams. For example, the project Blauherz of the Enactus team from Mannheim is integrated into a social welfare organization, through whose workshops the sustainable fashion label produces its goods. The social travel platform Socialbnb is currently being financially supported by the NRW Ministry of Economic Affairs and supported by the Duisburg-based Impact Factory in finding the right model for a spin-off.

Gexsi just recently engaged in a partnership with Enactus Germany, which reflects the fact that Enactus is the single-largest source of young social entrepreneurship projects which Gexsi has supported to date.

Creating a major wave of young startups across a whole continent – Tony Elumelu

This initiative only exists in Africa, but it spreads across the entire continent. The Tony Elumelu Foundation has ignited the largest start-up wave on the continent. Due to the very young population across the continent, the initiative benefits primarily young people who hardly have access to a bank loan.

Tony Elumelu is a successful entrepreneur from Nigeria. He has bought and converted several banks and accumulated a huge fortune. What does he do with it? Through his foundation, established in 2010, he supports 1,000 start-up entrepreneurs in Africa every year with 10,000 dollars – for 10 years. That means 100 million dollars altogether. The support includes mentoring services as well as a start-up capital in the form of a non-repayable grant of 5,000 dollars.

Launched in 2014, the TEF – Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme is likely to be the world’s largest privately funded start-up initiative. Tony Elumelu is even ahead of his plan. After six years, he has already supported 9,172 African start-ups from 54 African countries, selected from over 300,000 applications. The huge interest in his programme shows that innovative ideas from African entrepreneurs are only just sprouting and that the network has huge potential to grow even further. Through partnerships with African companies, the Foundation is able to expand its support for entrepreneurs even further, for example by arranging follow-up financing. Tony Elumelu expects his initiative to generate an additional 10 billion in revenue for the African economy and create one million new jobs.

«We are committed to entrepreneurship as the key to accelerating Africa’s social and economic development» Tony Elumelu, Founder TEF

While political advances for a sustainable transformation of the economy – whether here or in Africa – are bogged down in bureaucracy or party disputes, Elumelu is unwaveringly pushing through the project financed with his own money.

Digital tools are playing an increasingly important role. With TEF Connect, a digital platform with already more than 800,000 users, Elumelu has created a powerful networking platform for African entrepreneurs. In a 12-week programme of e-learning courses, mentoring coaching and meet-ups, entrepreneurs are empowered and mutually inspired within their companies. An annual forum brings together the most important decision makers in the African economy as well as global and African entrepreneurs.

Elumelu is convinced that a wave of entrepreneurs not only strengthens income and job markets, but also contributes to many other goals of sustainable development (SDGs). Start-ups that do not solve socially relevant problems are finding it increasingly difficult. A look at the supported start-ups shows how agile the start-up scene in Africa is. Quite a few of the supported start-ups are facing the new challenges posed by COVID-19.

For example, the company of Mohammed Akamera in Sierra Leone. To stop the spread of the virus by touching taps, he invented a tap that can be switched with the foot. The tap is made with locally available and recyclable materials and, with the support of the government of Sierra Leone, is now being introduced into communities, homes, offices, shops, markets and schools.

About this contribution

This contribution builds on two Gexsi Magazine articles (Green or social recovery? and Unleashing the power of students to create a better world). We believe this topic is so important that we opted to adjust and republish the content.