Hi everyone, I noticed that the Lifeguard Paper mentions the vital role that universities can play as “a breeding ground for entrepreneurs”. I was thinking, people don’t go to university until they are around 18 or older. What happens before this? Perhaps we need to start “breeding” entrepreneurs well before university if we want to create an innovation hub…
We need more tech entrepreneurs, so naturally people have to want to become tech entrepreneurs, meaning they need to know such a thing exists and has benefits… Question: In Australian culture, when do people find out about tech entrepreneurship and how cool it is? In my experience they just don’t. Not in their younger years anyway (maybe if Dad is a startup founder- unlikely). People (especially non- developers) usually have to fall into tech entrepreneurship, and that often requires a lot of unlikely steps (example in a bit). Another question: In Silicon Valley culture, when do people find out about tech entrepreneurship and how cool it is? Way earlier, yes? (I’ve never been there). Some of them even had Woz as a teacher! How do we compete with that? If we want to create an innovation hub, we need to get young people excited about tech entrepreneurship. Otherwise they won’t even know to look for the university programs mentioned in the Lifeguard Paper. In Alain De Botton’s latest book “The pleasures and sorrows of work” he says “most of us are still working at jobs chosen by our 16-year- old selves.” If that is going to hold any truth for the current generation of kids then we need to get to them before they turn 17! Heck, we could even be getting into primary schools- Obama's doing it: http://mashable.com/2009/09/07/obama-speech-to-school-children/. Once again, how do we compete with that? Somehow I can’t see K–Rudd at a school visit telling kids to go out and found the next Aussie tech sensation. I remember looking at the pamphlet rack in the careers office in year 12 (2005). There were pamphlets for everything from plumbing and panel beating to accounting and law and I wasn’t really interested in any of them. There wasn’t a pamphlet that said “create and market awesome things that people want and change the world.” Had that pamphlet been there, I might have dived right in (or at least started thinking about it), but instead I went off to do an Arts course, hate it, drop out, play in bands (apologies for the life story- just trying to make a point), start small business operations and generally wonder what the hell to do with myself. Meanwhile, young Valley entrepreneurs were getting a massive head-start on me. Finally after a year and a half I had the idea for “a website” and fell into tech entrepreneurship without even knowing it. It was then another 6 months before I really learned what I was doing- what a startup was, what the significance of Silicon Valley was, what a venture capitalist was, what TechCrunch was and the fact that there was a whole start-up culture out there (and Silicon Beach- awesome). If you look at this in Gladwellian terms, at the rate tech entrepreneurs work I was probably already 2000+ hours behind my Silicon Valley counterparts who had their eyes on the prize as teenagers. When I found the startup life I was instantly hooked, but before that I didn’t know about any of this stuff, and that’s the thing- no-one does. We do, but no-one else does. The Lifeguard Paper mentioned that the government lumps all forms of technology companies into one “ICT sector”. Well I can guarantee that the Australian public does as well, and young people are no exception- they see anything related to “IT” through a negative lens- conforming in suits, cubicles, too much coffee, corporate greed and the TV show “The Office”. To the young Aussie every tech company is operating out of a big black office like Coles Myer and being generally “sterile”. That’s what I get called by my friends- sterile- because they think I am spending most of my week faxing forms to BHP or something. I don’t think I’ve yet met a person my age (22) or younger outside of Silicon Beach that has heard of TechCrunch or startups or an RSS reader or Silicon Valley or stock options as incentives (unless they are in finance). Everyone's using social networks etc but no-one knows where they come from, with the exception of “that rich guy who made Facebook” and “Tom from Myspace”. In my experience if you try to talk to someone (anyone) about tech entrepreneurship and Silicon Valley you’ll get a reaction that makes you feel like you’re speaking Swahili or something. Silicon-Valley- style tech entrepreneurship is so distant from mainstream Australian culture that it makes Swahili look legible. This needs to change for the coming generation. I’m not saying that everyone who hears about tech entrepreneurship will care- no way- but a bit of education could be invaluable. Nor am I suggesting that tech entrepreneurship is a job you choose out of high school (it can be), but letting young people know about it early and telling them "this is possible in Australia" may influence there career choices. And get them thinking/inspired. There must be heaps of kids out there that would absolutely love this stuff if they knew about it. It seems almost unfair that a kid can be baffled by what they want to do in life without being told about the coolest thing out there. Perhaps tech-entrepreneurship awareness is something the government can help with or perhaps we need to do it ourselves. What could we do? That pamphlet in the rack at school would be a great start. If the school would allow it... Even some school presentations on the perks of the startup life featuring images of people like Evan Williams to an Eye of the Tiger soundtrack? That would work I think. The Lifeguard Paper mentions work experience placements at startups for uni students, but what about high school students? I did my high school work experience at the Australia Post IT department. The picture I got of the perceived monolith that is the “ICT industry” was so far removed from tech entrepreneurship it isn’t funny. If Steve Jobs was not born in Silicon Valley would he have been a tech entrepreneur? Are there Steve Jobs all over Australia right now missing out simply because of lack of awareness? If we don’t get marketing and harvest (awful word) these people at a young age we will remain reliant on people falling into tech entrepreneurship later in life and hence will posses a limited talent pool and always be that bit behind. Not the best situation for an aspiring innovation hub. We must brainwash the kiddies. So, do I sound crazy or does this make sense? I suppose I’m coming from a non-technical founder angle. How did you get involved in tech entrepreneurship? Could you have benefited from some earlier exposure? Should we be pitching tech entrepreneurship to young people? Should Eye of the Tiger be the soundtrack for the presentation or should it be 2pac Changes… --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. Guidelines on discussion: http://tr.im/ujKF No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself: http://tr.im/ujMm To post to this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
