Entrepreneurship Education
In a bid to overcome Korea's economic crisis and achieve sustainable economic growth, training the next-generation younger entrepreneurs is the most important. To this end, the first-generation venture entrepreneurs donated funds and established Korea Entrepreneurship Foundation in 2011. This year marks the sixth anniversary of the founding. Since then, “What is Entrepreneurship?” is the most frequently asked question in the Startup Ecosystem. I think entrepreneurship is the will to create new values, based on critical opinions on realities and innovation, and the willingness to take on challenges without a fear of failure.
Many people say that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is happening right now. The era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is subject to the combination of the manufacturing industry and information and communications technology (ICT) technologies. Technology innovation, which is based on information and communications and big data, will maximize the productivity and efficiency in existing industries as a result. Margins caused by it will significantly improve the quality of our lives but there will be numerous side effects as well.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) said in its report, entitled "The Future of Jobs," earlier this year, that 5 million jobs are expected to be terminated by 2020 as a whole as 7.1 million jobs could be lost through redundancy, automation, or disintermediation, while the creation of 2.1 million new jobs. In addition, the WEF predicted that questions over the employment instability caused by artificial intelligence and robot, which replace human labor, the widening rich-poor gap between countries due to a technological gap, and the human dignity and identity will arise. In particular, the latest edition of Businessweek magazine said that about 65 percent of students who entered elementary school this year would work in areas that do not yet exist.
I think we need entrepreneurship now in such society. Education on entrepreneurship, which can brace for future society at the national level, beyond the personal level, is needed more than ever. As if on cue, the Korean government has decided to start gradually offering entrepreneurship classes in the public education sector in 2018 and expand the program to all elementary schools, middle schools and high schools as regular class by 2020.
I think providing education on entrepreneurship is definitely the beginning of innovation that future society asks for and the stepping stone. We will not be able to flexibly respond to the rapidly changing times if we don’t provide entrepreneurship training programs to the rising generation. Accordingly, it is very timely and meaningful to host “GEC+ DAEGU” in Daegu with a theme of “entrepreneurship education,” hosted by the Small and Medium Business Administration and jointly organized by Korea Entrepreneurship Foundation, GEN, Yeungnam University Entrepreneurship Education Center and POSTECH Entrepreneurship Center. I have high expectation on the upcoming event considering the fact that 500 domestic and foreign entrepreneurship experts from 25 countries would gather to discuss various areas, ranging from the necessity of entrepreneurship education expansion to the effectiveness measurement methods, in depth.
I believe that entrepreneurship is the greatest legacy that we can leave to the next-generation who live in the uncertain times. I think that my generation is responsible for fostering the next-generation, who has keen insights to find new values through change, and establishing social infrastructure, which allows younger people to take on challenges without a fear of failure, through entrepreneurship education.