#SWF09: The role of education in social entrepreneurship

This arti­cle over at the Social Enter­prise mag has some great quotes about cre­at­ing young change-makers:

Para­phras­ing Bill Dray­ton, founder of Ashoka: “Young peo­ple should be edu­cat­ed about social entre­pre­neur­ship from the age of 12 if there is to be a next gen­er­a­tion of change mak­ers… The key time to inspire the social entre­pre­neurs of tomor­row is between the ages of 12 and 20.”

12? In my opin­ion we can, and should, start a lot soon­er, but I total­ly agree that we must pur­pose­ful­ly edu­cate our youth–ALL youth–about how to cre­ate the changes they want to see in the world. That is why my cur­rent work-in-progress is a how-to book for teenagers who want to save the world, aimed direct­ly at read­ers 12 and up.

“In one mes­sage of how edu­ca­tion­al insti­tutes should tack­le busi­ness teach­ing, [Jim] Austin [pro­fes­sor at the Havard Busi­ness School] said: ‘Empow­er the stu­dents, then get out the way. They will do incred­i­ble things.’ ”

YES! This is true for any indi­vid­ual or group, as we’ve already seen with oth­er great move­ments of empow­er­ment like civ­il rights and fem­i­nism. The next major empow­er­ment move­ment is that of the world’s youth, and I know it’s already here and grow­ing fast. I’m hop­ing my book will help it along in a big way, because I, for one, want to see even more incred­i­ble things.