Bridging Innovation and Entrepreneurship In Education: Developing Future-Ready Skills

Innovation and Technology continually transform the world. Additionally, economies and enterprises face new challenges that demand a workforce with future-ready skills. The scarcity of these skills and the talent war makes it more complex for companies to achieve their objectives and maintain competitiveness.

Considering this, there is a pressing need for universities and educational institutions to make considerable changes. Making slight adjustments to curricula or incorporating more theory-based entrepreneurship lessons is not enough. Students need to be exposed to hands-on and practical experiences. 

Objectives

The challenge is that academic and educational institutions are not showing preparedness. According to several studies, academia is not properly addressing this issue, possibly due to the lack of resources such as agility. Taking this premise, the overall goal should be to foster collaboration between academia and industry to achieve five main and measurable objectives:

• Generate a network between students, enterprises, and entrepreneurs.

• Enable a continuum of practical learning opportunities beyond the classroom.

• Expand distance learning to offer opportunities for all.

• Expose students to real-world challenges.

• Help students develop future-ready skills.

Approach

To achieve these objectives, a Learning HUB is proposed. One that is not directly linked to any enterprise or educational institution; instead, it functions as a network that, at its core, is led by entrepreneurs. Its primary focus is to help students be more prepared for the future and, at the same time, address business challenges in an agile and iterative way. All of this fosters the collaboration that is needed.

This HUB will serve as a catalyst for both formal and informal initiatives that combine business, technology, and entrepreneurship. Not only will these initiatives be executed, but their outcomes will also be measured to ensure that the objectives are being met.

As a first approach and pilot project for this, a two-week extracurricular learning course on Innovation and Entrepreneurship was held in collaboration with one higher education institution.

Results and Conclusions

The pilot course presented many challenges, including the lack of understanding of urgency from institutions and students. It was observed that students view these types of initiatives as optional activities instead of understanding their importance in their development and future readiness. Nevertheless, at the end of the course, participants gained practical lessons, were exposed to real-world challenges, and grew their network.

Some participants were studying an entrepreneurship-related major and had never heard the term minimum viable product (MVP). It just goes to show that teaching entrepreneurial theory is not near enough.

In conclusion, universities need to understand the urgency of developing these skills among their students. They should make these kinds of collaborations a priority and an institution-wide effort. It's not just about integrating it into the educational system but about generating measurable outcomes and workforce-ready students. It may be challenging to get students to sign up or institutions to participate, but in the end, those who do gain a lot.

By achieving these objectives, not only students benefit, but enterprises and entrepreneurs also gain something. It is an opportunity to create a talent pool and make businesses known amongst students, who could be potential clients or future interns.

Results and Conclusions

This learning model differentiates itself from others since it will be entrepreneur-led. Entrepreneurs and enterprises are fully aware of the challenges and talent needs, making it ideal for them to lead.

This proposal does not aim to improve curricula or existing educational models but rather to extend learning opportunities to include ones that are more aligned with real-world scenarios.