GLOBAL
Today’s doers and makers of
things do not apologise for
leveraging free markets yet
are socially motivated
The new global
start-up village
Jonathan Ortmans, President, Global Entrepreneurship Network,
Chair, Spark Global Entrepreneurship and Senior Fellow, Ewing
Marion Kauffman Foundation
T
oday’s doers and makers of
things do not apologise for
leveraging free markets yet
are socially motivated, and
as committed to positive values as
they are to a positive balance sheet.
They bring a renewed human spirit
around creating value for society
and a ‘glass half full’ attitude to
solving problems.
As the story unfolds, we see
entrepreneurs leading an evergrowing community of others keen
to support their endeavors. As
co-chair of President Obama’s Spark
Global Entrepreneurship coalition
initiated by the White House
where we have secured US$1bn
in new commitments from banks,
foundations, philanthropies and the
US Government -- US$100m of which
represents the collective investment
of the GEN community, I have met
with other heads of state recently
with open eyes to the potential
of their own citizens to power
economies and expand human
welfare through entrepreneurship
and innovation.
In his remarks, US President Barack Obama reminds us of the most
important ingredient in the recent global start-up renaissance – people,
writes Jonathan Ortmans, President, Global Entrepreneurship Network,
Chair, Spark Global Entrepreneurship and Senior Fellow, Ewing Marion
Kauffman Foundation.
Entrepreneurship ecosystems active
in Europe
European nations are hard at
work. For example, in Ireland,
multinationals, universities, institutes
of technology and research centers
are all working step in step to
empower new and young firms to
scale and springboard to global
success.
Germany has put a spotlight on
the need to define and understand
the eleven basic building blocks that
show the logic of how an ecosystem
works to better exploit existing
chances and at the same time
identify missing links. Meanwhile,
Denmark has invested heavily in
entrepreneurship education with
four federal ministries creating a
national knowledge centre and
focal point for the development of
entrepreneurship teaching at all
educational levels.
Globally, academic communities
have started aligning research
agendas and promoting shared
methodologies across different
economies to encourage
rigorous, relevant research aimed
at improving outcomes from
entrepreneurship policy and
programmes.
Start-up savvy policy advisors
are at work on the needs of their
start-up ecosystems, exploring
regulatory changes and other
policy ideas in an on-going quest
to smooth the path for these new
firms to start and scale. With so
many similarities across types
of economies and cultures in the
dynamics of entrepreneurial value
creation, national policymakers
have gone global, optimistic that
such cross-border collaboration will
produce results bigger than the sum
of the parts.
But while the trend is
promising, it is only a start. The
Global Entrepreneurship Index
that measures the health of
entrepreneu ɥ