Dawn of the Edupreneurial Revolution

“I believe that we will look back at this decade as the beginning of an economic revolution as important as the scientific revolution in the 16th century and the industrial revolution in the 18th century. We’re standing at the beginning of the entrepreneurial revolution.” Fred Wilson, AVC.com, pointed me to the Steve Blank Blog that begins with this prediction and continues, “This is a revolution that will permanently reshape business as we know it and more importantly, change the quality of life across the entire planet for all who come after us.”
Blank identifies the factors that made Silicon Valley center of the entrepreneurial universe. He points to the historical barriers to innovation that have largely been dismantled, and outlines the democratization of entrepreneurship.  Key factors including:

  • Compressing the product development cylce
  • Startups built for thousands rather than millions of dollars
  • The new structure of the VC industry
  • Entrepreneurship  as its own management science
  • Consumer internet driving innovation

Blank suggests that the Great Recession increased the pace of start ups and “while innovation is moving at Internet speed, this won’t be limited to just internet commerce startups. It will spread to the enterprise and ultimately every other business segment.”
He may be right about entrepreneurship in general; I’m quite sure it’s dawn of the edupreneurial revolution.  Steve thinks the entrepreneurial revolution will remain based in the U.S.  I’m less certain that the U.S. will remain the center of the learning technology revolution.  Our system is so calcified that it’s quite possible that we’ll see the major innovations occurring in counties that bypass batch-print Bismarckian schooling and go straight to personal digital learning.
Read Steve’s post and tell me how much of it will be true in the US learning space.
the real innovations

Tom Vander Ark

Tom Vander Ark is the CEO of Getting Smart. He has written or co-authored more than 50 books and papers including Getting Smart, Smart Cities, Smart Parents, Better Together, The Power of Place and Difference Making. He served as a public school superintendent and the first Executive Director of Education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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1 Comment

Core 4 All
11/27/2010

It is time for the change agents in the field of education to be vocal and change the status quo in public education. We cannot continue to stay on the same course we have been on since the beginnings of public education. It is time to put the brakes on and begin anew. We are 11 years in the new millenia. We have the tools, brain power, and drive to better prepare our students for the 21st century. I am an edupreneur making it happen in my classroom. Who will join the cause? http://core4all.wordpess.com

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