The entrepreneurial society

Recently I participated in a panel debate on Entrepreneurship. The panel consisted of respresentatives from business, NGOs and government. Now, what was most interesting to me was not what was said about entrepreneurship itself. Most of the panelists agreed that we needed to develop more of an entrepreneurial society, and that certain structures in Swedish society needs to change radically. What was most interesting to me was how the panelists and the audience viewed the migration from the rigid society of today to the entrepreneurial society of tomorrow. There are two points to this;

First, most Swedish people don't seem to be willing to make any fundamental changes in the way our society works. To me it seems obvious that fundamental structures of Swedish society needs to shift before any lasting change can be created. Information campaigns and media initiatives are just make up to me. Nothing is going to change through information and education alone.

Secondly, the view of education and learning is still very rigid. The very thought that people might learn on their own, outside of our educational factories seem to be a distant thought to most. Why is state-sanctioned education the only possible way to go? Why can't the individual drive important part of his or her own learnign? From my vantage point it seems obvious that people cannot become entrepreneurs if they have never been individually responsible for any part of their own learning.

I believe that AIESEC has an important role to play here. The platform can equip people with skills which we are never taught. Pretty simple things when you come to think of it, but yet the educational system have failed to equip Swedish citizens with these skills.

Hopefully, a deep shift is somewhere around the corner.