Thursday, September 27, 2018

Kidpreneurs - The Next Generation of Entrepreneurs Start Early

Many considered the turn of the twentieth century to be the pinnacle of industrialization but it wasn’t until the 2000s that entrepreneurship truly became a democratic pursuit. Gone are the days when one needed strong financial backing to start a business. This is the age of the startup and all it takes is one solid idea for business endeavors to take off. The silicon valley boom has seen the rise of young entrepreneurs and these days you have some of the youngest minds making some of the biggest bucks out there.

In such a scenario it is very important that the next generation of entrepreneurs be groomed early. The concept of student entrepreneurs arose out of this insight and now you have more and more parents pushing their kids towards this pursuit. Kidpreneurs, as they are popularly known, are basically intelligent and enterprising young children who are inculcated with basic business values which can then be put to practical use. This could be something as simple as coaching a kid to start their own lemonade stand and guiding them towards profitability.

Who actually teaches such courses you ask? Currently, even STEM for kids and other education models also don’t offer such courses but thankfully there are a number of extra-school institutions that offer such courses. They specialize in recognizing entrepreneurial talent in young children and helping them nurture this to great effect. While such courses definitely prepare children for an entrepreneurial life, they also provide them with important practical experience. It gives them a hands-on glimpse of what it means to run a company, manage finances, deal with profit and loss and think about things from a long-term perspective. The benefits are endless, the key lies in getting your child enrolled in a good course with good teachers.

Since most of the startups these days are in the technology space, writing code too has gained a lot of traction with younger children. Parents want their children to learn to code for a number of reasons, the most important one being to prepare them for a career in the software development field. But one cannot deny how well coding for children goes with the concept of student entrepreneurship. In fact, coding as a skill is helpful in a number of ways since it also teaches children to be disciplined and follow set rules. It mixes the dedication and discipline of technology with the bright spark of creativity, thereby stimulating both the spheres of the brain. Coding as a pursuit is in fact recommended for everyone these days.

While entrepreneurship for children and coding classes are all excellent concepts, better implementation in mainstream education is the need of the hour here. Educators need to understand the importance of these ideas and slowly incorporate them in a subtle way into the syllabus. The demand for such skills is evident, it makes sense for schools to accommodate them in their courses. In any case, the next generation of entrepreneurs may be young but they are definitely ready!

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