So the significance of entrepreneurs and the role of entrepreneurship go beyond the business world. However, I would like to shed some light on the importance and role of entrepreneurship in economic development and society.
Entrepreneurs are important to market economies because they can act as the wheels of the economic growth of the country. By creating new products and services , they stimulate new employment, which ultimately results in the acceleration of economic development. So public policy that encourages and supports entrepreneurship should be considered important for economic growth. A large number of new jobs and opportunities are created by entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship creates a huge amount of entry-level jobs that are very much important to turn unskilled jobholders into skilled ones. It also prepares and provides experienced workers to large industries. The increase in the total employment of a country largely depends on the rise of entrepreneurship. So the role of entrepreneurship in creating new job opportunities is huge.
By bringing innovation to every aspect of businesses, entrepreneurial ventures enhance production utilizing the existing resources in the most effective ways. Entrepreneurs develop new markets by introducing new and improved products, services, and technology. Thus, they help generate new wealth and add more to the national income.
So the government can offer the citizens more national benefits. Through the right practices of research and development, entrepreneurs bring new innovation that opens the door of new ventures, markets, products, and technology.
Entrepreneurs have a role to play in solving problems that existing products and technology have not yet solved. Entrepreneurs change or break the tradition or cultures of society and reduce the dependency on obsolete methods, systems, and technologies. Basically, entrepreneurs are the pioneer of bringing new technologies and systems that ultimately bring changes to society.
These changes are associated with improved lifestyle, generous thinking, better morale, and higher economic choice. In this way, social changes gradually impact national and global changes.
So the importance of social entrepreneurship must be appreciated. At Duke, the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative has a special program aimed specifically at Social Innovation. For example, one of the most recent projects of the initiative is the Duke-UNICEF Innovation Accelerator , which is focused on entrepreneurship for menstrual health and hygiene for women and girls in vulnerable communities in three African countries.
These entrepreneurs are known as Social Entrepreneurs since they are primarily focused on actualizing social value and social good as opposed to rampant profit seeking. In other words, social enterprises are those that have the bottom line consideration of positive social good and creating social value instead of existing for profits alone. It is not the case that these social entrepreneurs do not make profits or do not enjoy the proceeds from their ventures. Just that their endeavor is to do good for society through their firms and profits generated are usually divided in a just and equitable manner or are reinvested into their firms as part a cyclical process of social welfare.
As can be seen from the discussion so far, social entrepreneurs reflect a growing trend among capitalists worldwide that the time has now come for such people to take society and its welfare seriously. Indeed, the latest edition of the World Economic Forum in Davos, which is an annual gathering of the business and political elite and movers and shakers in the world, had as its central theme the responsibility of business towards social good and welfare outcomes.
Some real world social entrepreneurs are Mohammed Yunus of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh who pioneered the concept of Micro Credit or reaching out with money to those who lacked access to formal banking channels. Through this endeavor, Yunus managed to vastly improve the lives of poor and the underprivileged wherein through provision of credit in small amounts to those lacking established businesses that are needed for documentation and other requirements that are sought by the formal financial sector.
The experiment in social good proved to be so successful that Yunus was awarded the Nobel Prize for his efforts and what more, he became an example and an inspiration for generations of social entrepreneurs to follow his path and work for the betterment of society rather than for individual gratification.
Indeed, this model was adopted by the Government of Andhra Pradesh in India, which launched the SHGs or the Self Help Groups that are outside of the purview of formal credit and instead, were relying on money lenders to borrow for their small businesses.
I had a chance to see this commitment firsthand last June, when I was asked to moderate a panel of global entrepreneurs on the 70th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations charter in San Francisco. In addition to Michael Dell, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon joined us, addressing a core group of start-up entrepreneurs, urging them to mobilize their fellow entrepreneurs to help support new business formation globally.
According to Dell, the world needs million new jobs by to handle the growing working-age population. As an example of the kinds of government policies that can help support entrepreneurs and build new businesses, Gore points to crowdfunding, which was adopted in the Title 2 JOBS Act. She said new policies like these can open up greater opportunities for those who may not have traditionally had the same access to capital or markets.
In turn, that supports building a health infrastructure, leads to better governance, and focuses on what people need to succeed. Gore pointed out that entrepreneurs not only create jobs, but change how problems can be addressed and solved.
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