Archive for November, 2010

A collective piece coordinated by Jennifer Corriero and released today, The Youth Effect focuses on those who come behind as the safest bet to build a better future.  What a beautiful “graduation present” from the Forum of Young Global Leaders, of which I had the honor of belonging to the inaugural class.  It should help us never forget that one day someone believed in us.

The Youth Effect was created to inspire leaders of organizations across sectors to believe in the capability of youth and to develop the skills of established leaders in being able to engage and collaborate more effectively with youth. It is part of an effort to ensure that children and youth are an integral part of designing, shaping and creating a more sustainable future. [...]

Here are a few tweet-size quotes:

“How do we utilize the enormous potential of youth to influence the broader society and effect real change?” David Jones  #youtheffect

“People are true changemakers. How do we enlarge physical and mental spaces to let youth into the leadership sphere?” Penny Low  #youtheffect

“Leaders need to understand what matters to today’s youth. How do we involve this generation?” Hon. Scott Brison #youtheffect

“How do we motivate youth into action and involve them in the democratic process?”  Juan Mario Laserna and Christine Balling #youtheffect

“Youth are important Champions of Global Dignity. How do we provide them the opportunities to develop?” HRH Crown Prince Haakon  #youtheffect

“Youth can transcend the pressures of social divisions. How do we utilize their social competitive advantages?” Wilmot Allen #youtheffect

Focus on reaching young people instead of simply finding them. How do we “integrate and not infiltrate”? Josh Spear  #youtheffect

“Today’s youth are “digital natives” of social media. How can employers manage Gen Y?” Lucian Tarnowski  #youtheffect

“Today’s children are born in a world of unlimited communication. How do foster creative innovation among them?” Adrian Cheok  #youtheffect

“Integrated media campaigns are successful in reaching the youth. What was the Shuga campaign in Kenya?” Bhavneet Singh #youtheffect

“We need to unleash the creative potential of youth.  How do we transform the classroom to grow leadership?” Jennifer Corriero #youtheffect

“Facilitating meetings are key to engaging the youth. How do you successfully structure and conduct these meetings?” Yair Goldfinger #youtheffect

“Youth are not only the future, but also present leaders. How do we make them a part of setting the agenda?” Teresa Kennedy #youtheffect

“How do we engage and empower marginalized youth, especially female youth, to bring about transformational change?” Lorna Solis #youtheffect

“When youth are obsessed with a new idea, they display true entrepreneurial streak. How do we encourage them?” Kingsley Bangwell #youtheffect

“Being an entrepreneur can be a viable development tool for youth. How do we foster youth entrepreneurship?” Alfredo Capote #youtheffect

“We need to address the lack of financial literacy among youth. What is the “LEARN MONEY” initiative?” Carolina Müller-Möhl #youtheffect

“Good managers are socially conscious and responsible. How do we shape young business leaders to serve society? ” Angel Cabrera #youtheffect

“Role models inspire youth to become change makers of the present & shapers the future. How do we inspire them?” Javier Garcia #youtheffect

“Be hard with the problem and soft with the person. How do we help youth overcome fear and build trust?” Alberto Vollmer #youtheffect

“Understanding youth communication styles is crucial to engaging them. How should we communicate with teenagers?” Nancy Lublin #youtheffect

Spain’s President Zapatero convened this week a group 39 top business leaders to discuss the country’s competitiveness and his government’s commitment to press ahead with much needed social security, labor, and energy reforms (see report and photos in El País).  It is reassuring to see the government seek a close dialog with the private sector, especially as drum rolls are heard louder in international capital markets, unfairly yet dangerously comparing Spain’s solvency with Greece’s and Ireland’s.

The problem however is that the government seems to be leaving out of this dialog the part of the business community that can do the most to pull Spain’s economy back from its 20% unemployment: entrepreneurs.  Over the long run, it is not mature, large companies that create jobs, but new ventures.  Large companies represent what has worked well in the past (a few represent what went really wrong), not necessarily what will work well in the future.

Zapatero announced the creation of a new National Council of Competitiveness.  Here’s a wild idea: appoint to the council the most successful entrepreneurs in Spain (Spanish or not) as well as the most successful Spanish entrepreneurs who chose to create their companies abroad.  The first group can help shed light on the best Spain has to offer from a competitiveness standpoint, while the latter can help underline where Spain’s weaknesses lie.  Then pepper the Council with a sample of Spanish innovators in the best universities and research centers in the world. They know better than anyone what it takes to attract talent and drive innovation.  Together they may be able to draft a roadmap for a new innovation-driven economy.

While economic reforms are absolutely necessary, policy itself won’t create jobs, new businesses will.  The stimulus the Spanish economy desperately needs is a stimulus of innovation and entrepreneurship.

I posted the following on Twitter last week (CabreraAngel):

More than 50% of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs were born outside the US – @KauffmanFDN http://bit.ly/gtqVnq

In a few hours it had been re-tweeted more than 35 times, it has been quoted numerous times and it even made it to Twitter’s home page (the modern-day equivalent of the New York Times’ front page).  The apparently straightforward statistic seemed to touch a sensitive fiber in the business community: the idea that innovation-driven entrepreneurship flourishes in environments where talent from around the world is brought in together.

My tweet was based on data from a study on entrepreneurship and immigration (by Duke and Berkely researchers Wadhwa, Saxenian, Rissing and Gereffi), which I found via the Kauffman Foundation and which provided several additional jewels:

• More than half of the foreign-born founders of U.S. technology and engineering businesses initially came to the United States to study. Very few came with the sole purpose of starting a company. Almost 40 percent of immigrant founders entered the country because of a job opportunity, with only 1.6 percent entering the country with the sole purpose of entrepreneurship. They typically founded companies after working and residing in the United States for an average of 13 years.
• Immigrant founders were educated in a diverse set of universities in both their home countries and across the United States. No single U.S. institution stands out as a source of immigrant founders. Similarly, those who received their undergraduate degrees in India or China graduated from a diverse assortment of institutions. Even the famed Indian Institutes of Technology educated only 15 percent of Indian technology and engineering company founders.
• Immigrant entrepreneurs tend to move to cosmopolitan technology centers. The regions with the largest immigrant population also tend to have the greatest number of technology startups. On average, 31 percent of the engineering and technology companies founded from 1995 to 2005 in the 11 technology centers that were surveyed had an immigrant as a key founder. This compares to the national average of 25.3 percent.
• Technology centers with a greater concentration of immigrant entrepreneurs in their state averages include Silicon Valley (52.4 percent), New York City (43.8 percent), and Chicago (35.8 percent). Three technology centers had a below-average rate of immigrant-founded companies: Portland (17.8 percent), Research Triangle Park (18.7 percent) and Denver (19.4 percent).

In a 21st century economy fueled by ideas, the key determinant of competitiveness will be connectivity.  Talent begets talent. Ideas attract ideas and generate new ones. Ideas drive innovation and new ventures. Ventures create jobs and wealth (new companies are responsible for practically all net jobs created in the US in the last three decades). Wealth attracts talent. And so on.

Economic crises tend to provoke protectionist knee-jerk reactions to build up walls (literally and figuratively) to curb immigration and trade.  Yet, it is by opening doors intelligently (not by slamming them shut) that economies can find their way back to sustainable, innovation-driven growth.

By Joe Dion ‘03

Dr. Cabrera,

It was really great to meet you last week at the event in Seattle, and I’m very happy to see the school placing a stronger focus on the alumni. It’s an amazing network that most of us really can’t understand until we graduate and leave. Even with the current level of effort Thunderbird places on maintaining the Thunderbird “mystique”, it something that defies explanation. I loved the “misfit toys” analogy being someone that often has to explain myself (been to 55 countries to date and some that people don’t consider “safe”). To that, I now have to explain why my alumni network is more like a family than a normal MBA program alumni group. I can’t wait to see what programs come up in future year as a result of this 2020 vision project, and I’ll be looking to getting more involved than I have been so far.
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