Let’s get young women thinking entrepreneurially

The Aspen Ideas Festival has just taken place in the US and one of the topics for discussion centered on the notion of more young people being taught the subject of entrepreneurship in school. One of the guest speakers at the event, Tina Seelig, a faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, shared some of her insights on the best way of getting young people to think more entrepreneurially. She believes that entrepreneurship can be taught using a framework of skills, building upon our natural ability to imagine. She suggests: Imagination is envisioning things that don’t exist; Creativity is applying imagination to address a challenge; Innovation is applying creativity to generate unique solutions; Entrepreneurship is applying innovations, scaling the ideas by inspiring others’ imagination. This framework doesn’t simply apply to young people, however - it can help every entrepreneur to more proactively engage with the world around them and envision what might be different, creating the solutions needed to the challenges they see.