How do we involve children in entrepreneurship?
A few weeks back, our children from Lobhi village set up something interesting in the middle of the chowk. The Durga chowk which usually crowds up from 7 am in the morning was witnessing a very unusual spectacle. A group of eighth graders were demonstrating some machine and were shouting out some technical things out loud.
The inquisitive villagers were wondering what is the new innovation that these kids have developed and were looking at the developments unfold. The centre of attraction however was this cycle based blender which the children had designed. The kids had innovated upon making a cycle based blender which could be adjusted onto any possible cycle. You just have to give it a little pedal for making the juices in almost no time.
I was sitting there next to other villagers in the conventional squatting position and observing the scene. Whether the cycle based blender was commercially viable, whether their sales pitches were going in the right direction and so on.
On looking at the kids earning money by selling the juices and promoting the product, I was trying to imagine an innovation ecosystem and how children could be led towards entrepreneurship. The kids were regularly designing new products, solving new problems and so on. There were some problems which the villagers were facing for several generations which were resolved by the community co-creating at the social innovation lab. But the whole question which was nagging me was this. What happens next? How do you sustain it? How do you channelise their potential?
There were people willing to purchase the cycle based blender. We had got a couple of orders for the same, and the children were also relishing the idea of taking it to the neighboring villages such as Naka Dongri and Ashti and presenting the sales pitches there as well. They might probably get more orders, define the term — ‘entrepreneurship’ which they find so difficult to pronounce, and to also earn a few bucks by manufacturing and selling it.
The cycle based mixie was not just ‘made’ per se, but led to. The problem was analysed and this was the manifestation of what was considered to be the solution. And this had many aspects of learning, intrinsic as well as extrinsic which the children involved in. What we were especially interested to involve in, through dHive was to find ways in which education can lead to sustainable livelihood. Can it make them self-sufficient, or rather ‘robust’? So when some parents were skeptical with our whole approach towards education, many would say — ‘It’s okay if they are building some models or science projects and so on, but will it give them a job later on?’
It was very difficult for me to explain it to them that just by learning science and making machines they will not be guaranteed a job. And even if some are given a job doesn’t mean that they are good with science and making machines.
The whole point of the students landing a job was a multi-faceted question with divergent views and multiple perspectives. There are actually three things that such bright kids could potentially end up doing — Primo, Continuing their father’s work which might mostly include farming and other occupations such as selling vegetables, repair work, fitting, carpentry. Secundo, Applying for a government job or any other white collar job by preparing for entrance examinations or developing other exam-specific skills.
Third, they could possibly do entrepreneurship. And that’s where that metaphorical light bulb lights up with infinite possibilities. If they are already good at problem solving, they might eventually come to a stage where they could identify new problems alias new opportunities. Now by solving this, they could cater to the same need across multiple segments. And more the people, the larger the target audience for the product. All they have to do then is to start the business. Of course, we are circumventing the major aspects to starting a business such as capital, labour, raw materials and so on, but atleast they have the potential to realize a product-market fit.
And there is plenty of scope for children to be exposed to entrepreneurship early on in their school. Simple things such as setting up a lemonade stall can teach them a lot of things which school education might not instill them with.
Exposing them to such skill sets could also potentially counter the rural-urban migration problem. The ones who are bright enough to land a good job might not stay back in their village. The ones who are stay back in the villages because they have nowhere to go, take up working in the fields with the least interest.
The government job is that universal panacea which most of them aim for, the pushback cushion, but it’s very rare to see people land an offer. There is this struggle which has low yield, as the basics are weak and no matter how much ever they try appearing for the examinations, they fail to make it. They keep appearing till the age limit exceeds. And once that happens, they go back to the farms. The full cycle is completed and the cyclical process starts again. So, it’s only when entrepreneurship happens, when communities become more independent, and decentralized. They don’t have to migrate to urban areas and live like urban slums.
Entrepreneurship is however inherently asymmetrical. With its high upsides and equally high downsides, it poses as a difficult option to the villager. Can he or she even fathom to handle the high risk involved? It could even lead to a life and death situation. The successful entrepreneur would be put on a pedestal while the failed entrepreneur would hardly be remembered. Despite the fact that the fate of the business might not just revolve around his hard work and passion, but also on many other random factors such as the mood of the customers, trends from the market or even the flapping of the butterfly (if chaos theory is taken into account).
So to conclude, should we in a way expose them to higher risks and higher margin (entrepreneurship) or to passively involve in lower risk lower margin (agrarian professions) or let them dilly dally somewhere in between where the returns are not quite conclusive.
There is no single answer to this question. However, I feel that if the community is given a pushback cushion for daring to take risks, it becomes more feasible. With risks come innovation, And innovation needs to happen for decentralized communities to exist.
‘Decentralised communities’ is a very lame economics term and I would try to define it in a better way. These are communities that don’t crave to migrate to urban areas. These are communities where new economies keep opening up, and keep reviving them in some kind of a dynamic dance, a circular economy. Now the question worth pondering upon is what can we do to bring such economies to existence?
