Global Entrepreneurship Week kicks off today

by James Agate

Make a job, don’t take a job.

As you may be aware, Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) gets started today with 40,000 events in 100 different countries taking place between 15th and 21st November.

Make a job, don’t take a job is the message behind the global event, which is being part funded in the UK by Enterprise UK. One statistic really sticks out as being a fundamental reason for events like this encouraging people to go out there and start something of their own.

“A rise of just 1% in self-employment in the UK would boost the UK’s GDP by £22 billion and cancel out the Government spending cuts for the next two years.“

It is incredible that just under half of the population have desires to open their own business but only 5.8% of people will actually do it – GEW is designed to combat this ambition gap amongst other things.

Unsurprisingly, many of the UK’s leading entrepreneurs are getting involved. Doug Richard, founder of School for Startups, recently commented that entrepreneurs are the modern day alchemists turning lead into gold. He is ‘over-committing’ himself this week, speaking and attending many events in a short space of time. His reasoning is that “Time is short and entrepreneurship can be learned, thus it must be taught.” Good on you Doug!

Another entrepreneur, Julian Ranger CEO of iBundle an innovation hub for tech start-ups, welcomed Global Entrepreneurship week as a great initiative:

“Initiatives like Global Entrepreneurship Week to support entrepreneurial spirit are vital if SMEs are to rebuild the economy.  Global Entrepreneurship Week is throwing the spotlight on small businesses with big ideas, which after all provide 60% of the UK’s jobs and half of GDP. David Cameron and the Government must do more to support entrepreneurs, but so must the existing business community.”