Hi, everyone.
Thank you all for coming.
My name is Jocelyn Mosman.
I am a senior at Mount Holyoke College.
And this summer, I worked at the Leadership Lab Initiative
at Harvard's Graduate School of Education
doing research on youth entrepreneurship
in higher education facilities.
So while I did other things, the primary idea of this talk
is going to be about the research study
that I conducted.
I interviewed 73 students, student entrepreneurs,
professors of entrepreneurship, and directors
of centers of entrepreneurship programs
at 43 of the top 50 universities known
for their entrepreneurship programs across the country.
And I was investigating university supports for
and causes of what is going on that
is causing this influx, this uptick of young entrepreneurs
going into our colleges today?
Just to give you a note on this, the paper
will be published later on this fall.
So a few of our findings.
I'm going to just run down this list and then talk about a few
of the major points.
We found that there was a creation of majors, minors,
and concentrations in entrepreneurship, which
means that you can now get entrepreneurship
degrees at some of these universities, entrepreneurship
capstone courses.
We also found that there were competitions and campus
initiatives.
And so some of these campus initiatives and competitions, I
heard from one professor, there was
a competition that involves students literally
getting onto the baseball field and pitching
their ideas to the angels in the outfield, or the investors.
So it was called Angels in the Outfield.
And that will be the only sports metaphor in this talk.
We also found that the lean startup teaching
model is very popular.
It has since, in the past 10 years,
replaced the business plan model,
which was the predominant model used up until just recently.
The integration to the community,
a lot of these students are engaging
with community members, whether it's entrepreneurs, or CEOs,
or they're bringing entrepreneurs into the campus
and having them sit as entrepreneurs in residence,
and the centers are having them teach classes.
Their community involvement is a very large aspect.
And then finally, interdisciplinary focus.
We're seeing more and more students
who were journalists majors who are becoming entrepreneurs,
because they're having to self-promote and create
a brand just like entrepreneurs would,
which I found very interesting.
Additionally, we found that the causes of the uptick, primarily
an economic collapse that happened
in 2008-- a lot of these students
grew up watching their parents lose their jobs
in big corporations, and they didn't
want to become a part of that system.
University emphasis, as I mentioned
on the previous page-- obviously,
with more university emphasis, there
comes more students interested.
Also, the rise of technology.
A lot of the students in school today
were brought up with iPhones, iPods, iPads, laptop computers.
Pretty much technology at their fingertips,
which means that there is a lower barrier of entry.
There's low risk coming immediately out of college
to start a business.
You don't have to worry about a family or obligations,
in that sense.
So it's the prime time to start creating your own business.
Additionally, universities are getting government funding
for their programs.
So in order to create more entrepreneurship initiatives,
the government is actually giving universities
money to promote entrepreneurship,
which will little later on, help the economy.
The Facebook effect-- essentially, students
hear about Mark Zuckerberg, founders of Facebook,
of AirBnB, these other major tech corporations.
And students are thinking to themselves, if they can do it,
why can't I, which is pushing them
towards pursuing this degree and this lifestyle, this career
path.
Additionally, the media appeal, with shows
like Shark Tank, and West Texas Investors Club,
and CNBC-- students are seeing it right
live in their faces every day.
So clearly, this is something that's impacting them.
And finally, there's the desire to make a difference, which
is such a primary aspect to this, because students aren't
willing to sit in corporate jobs anymore,
and bank jobs where there is no upwards mobility
and they're just part of a system.
Now, they want to actually make their mark on the world.
And social ventures are a huge aspect
of what we found in entrepreneurs today.
Just to give you an idea, we came up
with two theories, the first being generation
F, or generation of young founders.
This generation consists of college and graduate students,
young professionals.
These are the people who grew up with technology,
watched the economic collapse happen,
and have a desire to make a difference by creating
their own business.
Additionally, we created the creation
based learning model, which is essentially
experiential learning 3.0.
This is your internships, accelerators, incubators,
whatever the university can do to get students out
of the classroom and creating hands-on experience, having
those experiences in the center, in the classroom,
in the community, abroad.
And so I have a few quotes from students
that we had in this study.
And these quotes contain information
like they want to make a difference,
or their family went bankrupt.
So they were forced to move, and that's
why they're pursuing entrepreneurship.
Or they wanted to create something that was larger
than themselves, which the two that mentioned
trying to create a difference are both
working in social ventures.
The quotes that I have from the creation
based learning model talk about apprenticeships.
They talk about putting students in the room,
vibrant internships, study abroad programs.
But the final quote is the quote that really sums up
what we found in the study is you
can't teach entrepreneurship without doing it.
There has to be hands on component,
which is so vital to the study of entrepreneurship
and how that process works, getting them
from classroom to career.
Finally, I just wanted to take a moment
and thank Harvard Graduate School of Education;
thank [? Linc ?] at Mount Holyoke;
my boss, Barbara, at the Leadership Lab.
She's actually a former international lawyer, which
is what I want to go into.
And she now is pursuing a career in education,
in higher education.
And she created a women's university in Asia
before coming back to Harvard, which is really neat.
She was a Smith alum.
It was a very interesting connection that we had,
and all of the people on our team
were also women's college students alumna.
It was a really wonderful experience.
And then also, thank you, Professor Jacoby.
And I would like to thank the rest of my panel.
Here are just a few sources, if you
want to take a look at any of the articles
that I was able to write this summer, and our research.
And finally, thank you all for listening,
and I appreciate your time.
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