Making Innovation Flourish

Risk-taking for the future

In the latest of our essays on how best to prepare young people for the future, Donna Miller, Human Resources Director, Europe, at Enterprise Rent-A-Car asserts that the developing the skill of risk-taking in young people is crucial.

She says: “Young people need to understand that risk underpins many facets of life, including workplace skills, creativity, enterprise, decision-making and problem-solving.”

An informed attitude to risk-taking is also fundamental for innovation as it requires experimentation, endeavour, the ability to overcome fear of failure and the competency to weigh up different options and, when necessary, to invent one’s own opportunities. 

NESTA’s Future Innovators programme is currently working with a range of partners on new ways of developing an awareness of risk-taking in young people or those who support them. Our pilots include a project to examine how this skill can be embedded into the curriculum for Design and Technology, a scheme to encourage adults working with young people to manage their own reactions to risk and an online psychometric tool to encourage young people to think about the risks they take and face in daily life.

We’re interested in learning about other projects that aim to develop risk-taking in young people.

Can you teach enterprise?

In the latest essay from our series on ‘Preparing for the Future’, Claire O’Halloran from Microsoft poses the question: “Can you teach enterprise?” Professor Dylan Jones-Evans, Director of the National Entrepreneurship Observatory for Wales argues that “you can’t teach it, but you can learn it.”

What you do think?

Claire goes on to argue that developing entreprenuerial skills requires people to be open to learning and to try to think “more like an entrepreneur”. She believes that, in many cases, this is about giving people confidence.

But how do we learn these skills and gain this confidence?

The confidence to succeed

In this week’s essay, 15 year old student Leila Thompson expresses her concerns about the future world of work.

She says: “I do worry about getting a job in the future. Jobs and placements seem to be getting much more competitive; even finding a week’s work experience is proving to be difficult for me.”

Leila concludes that, in her opinion, providing opportunities for young people to develop confidence, independence and initiative, is as important as qualifications and early stage careers guidance.

Policy changes, such as the introduction of 14 to 19 Diplomas and plans for raising the school leaving age in England; and the Determined to Succeed initiative in Scotland, will dramatically increase the demand for effective and relevant methods of work-related learning.

Given Leila’s concerns about current provision, how do we enable the system to meet this increase in demand and how do we ensure that the opportunities available support young people to develop the attributes she identifies?

We must think creatively about how to tackle the issue of meeting demand without sacrificing learning opportunities and quality. At NESTA, we’re currently exploring new models of work-related learning which will, in part, attempt to address this.

As always, we welcome your comments.

The Future is a Shared Responsibility

In the latest essay from our series on ‘Preparing for the Future’, Karen Halford, Head of Resourcing and Development for Vodafone UK, argues that the future is a shared responsibility. This requires employers and education to work more closely together to instil in young people leadership, interpersonal skills and teamworking, together with an understanding of the role of technology in business.

The difficult question is how do you do this? Most schools and colleges would welcome closer links with employers and, similarly, a lot of businesses recognise the benefits of engagement. But there are cultural and logistical barriers that need to be overcome.

NESTA is currently exploring new models to address these challenges in three different sectors: the creative industries, third sector and rural economy.

What do you feel are the best ways of bringing education and business together for mutual benefit?

Preparing for the Future: preparing for the long-term by embracing the short-term

Young people do not seem to be under any illusions that the future working environment is going to be tough and that a job for life is no more.  This is borne out in research that we commissioned on young people’s perceptions of the future world of work and is also confirmed in our latest essay on how to equip young people for a rapidly changing world. 

In this article, 17-year-old Phil Croft argues that the future workplace is likely to be based on short-term contracts.  He puts forward some interesting suggestions for helping young people deal with this - from encouraging greater adaptability in students to facilitating more project-based work in schools.

For some students, more of an emphasis on applying their knowledge, rather than just acquiring it, is likely to improve their motivation for learning. Where the project-based learning is grounded in real challenges and dilemmas facing organisations, both learners and organisations can benefit.

We are working with Space Unlimited, a group that facilitates groups of young people to work on a particular problem posed by a company.  Space Unlimited has found that their programme provides skills development for the participating students and fresh insights for the companies.

Of course, I’m mindful that such schemes require time and resources to broker but surely the benefits outweigh this.  What do you think?

Preparing for the Future: A Generation of Mentees

Luke Skywalker knew how to be a good mentee and as a result, the whole universe was at his fingertips…..

In the second of our series on preparing young people for a rapidly changing world, entrepreneur Tom Hadfield highlights the importance of mentoring.

Tom argues that “the art of how to ask for advice from mentors, how to distil the key lessons and how to apply them to our own lives is one of the best kept secrets in education”.

This is a refreshingly novel idea. Effective mentoring benefits all parties involved. For the mentor, it provides a personal development opportunity. For young people, it encourages them to seek advice and guidance, and, as Richard Reeves argues in last week’s essay, to continually question. A successful mentoring relationship can provide young people with some of the skills likely to be needed to succeed in the future workplace, such as confidence, enquiry skills, reflection and flexibility.

Is the current education system the right environment for successful mentoring relationships to develop? Much support is given to training the mentor. But how do we support young people to ask the right questions in a environment which focuses on knowing the right answers? As always, I am keen to hear your views.

The most important question an entrepreneur has to answer

Sherry Coutu (in her article in the 'what I wish I'd known'  series) explains that “solving someone’s problem” is at the heart of a business.

On the face of it, it appears an obvious consideration, however, a large proportion of the companies we see can not satisfactory articulate the problem they are solving. I put it down to a reluctance of some early stage entrepreneurs to really get to know their potential customers early on in a business’s life. This hesitancy to speak to a real customer can lead to outrageous assumptions on the depth of the so called ‘problem’ that they are solving.

Answering the question ‘what problem are you solving’ is fundamental to getting to the heart of the value of your business…if that is not enough reason to reconsider this concept then consider that every sensible investor I know asks a version of this question at some point in their first meeting with a company that is looking for investment. In short it is essential that you and everyone in your business can give a clear, articulate answer.

Things I wish I'd known...

The BVCA, together with NESTA, have approached 16 highly successful technology entrepreneurs, many of them involved in spinouts from universities, to provide a short letter addressed to an unknown aspirant tech entrepreneur under the title of ‘things I wished I'd known!’.

We’ll be publishing 1 article a week on our website over the coming months - starting from tomorrow - and I really recommend you take a look. We’ve ended up with some extraordinarily honest insights on what it is really like when you are at the coalface trying to build a technology business.

Just to give you a flavour…

• Steve Purdham  - founded SurfControl –a global internet security company that recently sold for $400million
• Peter Denyer – he is the founder of a spin out that makes millions of those little cameras in mobile phones
• David Tatchell – founded Flomerics that now employees more that 200 people in 12 countries

I plan on commenting on some of the insights along the way and it would be great to hear any other takes on the articles.