Entrepreneurship: Cure for Our Hundred Material Sorrows

Note: I wrote haphazardly this little post to introduce our field of entrepreneurship to an audience of position holders of all boards of Pakistan in Punjab. Many of them are becoming doctors, engineers, scientists, biologists, bankers, etc. The original post is here. Please improve on it and give your feedback.

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Entrepreneurship is about starting up new business(es). The only way a new firm can make business is by delivering something that has not been offered, or, "to create products that people need but have yet not imagined." This involves a lot of 'innovation' to be done that goes beyond mere 'invention'. Hence, we have much more practical and feasible solutions for everyday problems. And, above all, entrepreneurship - like life - is about integrative thinking and action. Cross-pollination of different fields, technical and non-technical expertise goes into making innovative products and solutions for the benefit of a greater number.

The most innovative firms, like IDEO, are ones where the teams, that develop and make innovative solutions and products for real life problems, consist of people from very diverse backgrounds. IDEO, for example, was once given the task of reinventing the shopping trolley. Now imagine, you're to make a much better trolley, that is more safer, effective and efficient and cheaper, would you need biologists, marketers, psychologists, etc. to make such a product? Yes, you do in entrepreneurship to make breakthrough, cheap and efficient products.

What would be better than integration of different parts of knowledge, in our world so ruthlessly compartmentalized? With this integrative approach towards making use of knowledge, and knowing a process to innovate better products (that is Design Thinking, click to know what it is), would lead us to eliminate poverty, save energy, and make practical things that solve everyday problems. To end this post by giving a little example of how entrepreneurship, the art and science of doing business, is helping poor countries prosper and save their resources, I just need to mention about the 100 Dollar Laptop Project; One Laptop for Every Child, which is backed by world's major transnational corporations:

"Mission Statement: To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. When children have access to this type of tool they get engaged in their own education. They learn, share, create, and collaborate. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future."

Read more about the project, its vision and technical aspects (hardware and software), here.