We live at extraordinary times to advance educational opportunity. Skills and knowledge are recognized as important by most people, and there is support for the idea that all persons deserve the opportunity to develop their talent. We also have an infrastructure, based on the efforts of the last decades, that provides all children and youth the opportunity to be schooled. We also face challenges, the challenge of translating such access into meaningful learning. What role can entrepreneurs play in helping to accelerate the pace of innovation in addressing this challenge? Should the ability to produce changes at scale in the 'education space' be a requirement to consider someone an entrepeneur? What is the distinction between an entrepeneurial individual in education and a social activist? These are the topics of discussion in this class
http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k101911&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup179084
What are your thoughts about these topics?
http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k101911&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup179084
What are your thoughts about these topics?
4 comments:
Today's discussion got me thinking more, and helped me make a distinction in my on mind that I think is important. I made the point that "scale" is not a top priority for me as a social entrepreneur as I design my project. I am focused on demonstrating a new way to address an existing problem, and I have a certain community in mind that will benefit. But, the important distinction is that there is a difference between "scale" and "scalability." In other words, I am designing an intervention that may be implemented on a very modest scale, and I'm fine with that. BUT, I do want to design it in a way the CAN and WILL be scaled, even if that task falls to another entrepreneur. So, I believe scale is nice, but scalability is a more important quality in an entrepreneurial project.
I agree Drew. Of course Scalability cannot be an afterthought. If the entrepreneur does not think about scale from day one, they make pursue paths that are subsquently not scalable.
I think there is a big difference in terms of education accessibility and meaningful learning between European countries and those in south east Asia, for example. However, when new educational ventures are created to give access to defavourised children, they need to ensure a meaningful learning is provided from the beginning. From my perspective, there are innovative models already put in place that are greatly improving the lives of many people such as 'International Bridge Academy' in Kenya. In order to accelerate the pace of innovation, these proved models should be publicly and proactively shared with people willing to start something similar or already working on such areas. The exchange of best and innovative practices nowadays is very easy and would save time, money and effort to those who try to establish a similar model in a similar context.
Monica
Post on behalf of Claudine Fernandez:
While I agree that entrepreneurs should share their knowledge and information about their model so that the pace of innovation can be increased, we must be mindful that models need to be adapted to suit various contexts. A model which succeeds in one area may fail miserably in another. Also, I've been thinking about barriers such as the government of a certain country not allowing for innovative strategies by outsiders, which could slow down the pace of innovation and change.
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