It seems like an ever-increasing number of countries are realizing the benefits of fostering entrepreneurship. This should be a no-brainer… entrepreneurs are change-makers, stimuli for the economy and innovators that impact our daily lives through their ideas. Having an increasingly entrepreneurial workforce can and will result in a strong and stable economy.While the means of creating entrepreneurial growth in each country is different, a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal highlights some recommendations from the Kauffman Foundation to shape the entrepreneurial ecosphere through “radical innovation” in the United States. Here are the highlights:1. Create a skilled work force. Better motivate schools to steer kids into math and science careers and, hopefully, entrepreneurship. One idea: Give money those in low-income areas with many students taking advanced courses in these subjects.

2. Embrace high-skilled immigrants. Immigrants create one-quarter of all high-tech firms these days. To encourage new-business development, the U.S. should increase the number of student visas and automatically give green cards to students earning degrees at U.S. universities in such subjects as engineering, math or science.

3. Rethink the intellectual property system. The U.S. intellectual property system is bogged down with patent applications for ideas that aren’t novel. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office should change the way it assesses applications. It’s testing “open source” assessments - allowing people outside the patent office to decide whether something is patentable, and that might be a good long-term solution. It will allow the really entrepreneurial, innovative ideas to get protection faster.

4. Embrace global trade. Global trade helps Americans get cheaper overseas goods and to market our new innovations abroad - which only helps entrepreneurs. The federal government must help Americans overcome their fear of trade and see the value for the economy.

5. Reform health insurance. The U.S. health-insurance system is broken, and there’s no incentive to change it because many insured consumers pay so little for it. Instead, strongly encourage options like Health Savings Accounts for all employees that would help them become more aware of the costs, paving the way for market forces to bring down prices.

6. Reduce poverty. Poverty and educational attainment are directly linked. A good start at improving high-school graduation rates would be giving incentives to teachers and principals tied to the graduation rates of their students in both high-school and college.

7. Address climate change. The government should give entrepreneurs incentive to create environmentally friendlier solutions. This includes making sure current carbon-emitting products are priced to reflect their high cost to the environment, so that consumers demand more environmentally friendly goods.

For the most part, it would appear that these basic recommendations could be employed in a number of countries. What do you think? Would they help your country? What recommendations would you add or take away?

Tags: Kauffman Foundation

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 2:50 pm and is filed under Challenges. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.