by William Jackson & Daniel James Scott of the Sustainable Entrepreneurship & Innovation Alliance
After years of fostering entrepreneurship in the hearts and minds of students, we have come to one of those realizations that seem to turn the world on its ear: Every student who attends college is a visionary – regardless of discipline.
What justification do we have to generalize and label an entire class of individuals?
Our secret is the insider knowledge that students choose to embark on an academic journey as a direct result of wanting a dramatically different world for themselves in 2-5 years.
Very rarely will students attribute their collegiate dedication to “making more money.” Almost certainly, however, they will attribute it to wanting to “do something with their lives.”
For example, a true entrepreneur sees the world impacted by an idea that has the potential to grow into a movement and affect real change. Students see the world impacted by their own efforts, which snowball into enough influence to affect real change. Both leverage impact for change. Both serve a goal larger than just their personal aspirations. Both are visionaries.
Then how do we, as educators, fit in to this goal? It is our responsibility to avoid, at all costs, killing the messenger, compromising the scope, or stifling the creativity of that vision. We can help shape perspective, push to influence it and provide a path forward. We can assist in ironing out a concept, building a model around it and allowing for community feedback. We can facilitate students’ access to peer networks, free services and established mentors.
Students who just cannot wait to graduate, not because they are ready to take on the world, but because they just want out of school, are at least partially the education system’s fault. Disengaged students, who have lost their vision and ability to think big? At least partially our fault. Students who have given up on that dream they attended college to achieve? Again, at least partially our fault.
This has huge implications for the Tampa Bay area.
Visionary students evolve into visionary leaders, and disengaged students dissolve into disengaged employees.
The ball is in our court as educators. And we, of course, feel that entrepreneurship is a fantastic place to start this paradigm shift in education. So we have built an alliance around the concept that it takes a community to mentor leaders strong enough to build a company visionary enough to affect change.
This alliance has a very specific recipe for our visionaries:
- Focus: To strengthen our community, we focus our visionaries on sustainability and innovation.
- Incentive: Gus Stavros has provided the foundation, by endowing a $150,000 scholarship.
- Peer Support: Our student club will be an active participant in all alliance activities.
- Consulting Support: The Florida Small Business Development Center at USF St. Petersburg will be available to provide free, confidential one-on-one business counseling.
- Mentor Support: The alliance’s impressive board, in addition to our community’s thousands of successful entrepreneurs, will be available to provide guidance and partnership.
For additional information regarding the Sustainable Entrepreneurship & Innovation Alliance at USF St. Petersburg, to learn how to participate, or to provide us with your own thoughts and insight, please visit us at http://seialliance.com.
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