Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing is the practice of engaging a ‘crowd’ or group for a common goal, such as innovation, problem solving or efficiency.It can take place on many different levels and across various industries. Thanks to our growing connectivity, it is now easier than ever for individuals to collectively contribute, whether with ideas, time, expertise, or funds, to a project or cause. (Crowdsourcing Week, 2017).
If you want to learn when 'crowdsourcing' became a trend, take a look at the real data that Google shares with us: www.google.co.nz/trends/explore#q=crowdsourcing
Crowdfunding
With crowdfunding, an entrepreneur raises external financing from a large audience (the “crowd”), in which each individual provides a very small amount, instead of soliciting a small group of sophisticated investors. Provini (2014) provides the following ideas for how you might raise money for schools with crowdfunding:
- Use crowdfunding for specific projects or needs, rather than general fundraising
- Identify a safe, flexible and transparent platform
- Start with reasonable goals
- Break large projects into smaller steps
- Prepare workgroup members to do intensive marketing
- Marketing messages matter!
- Target different levels of donors (alumni, community members, parents, local business owners, etc.)
- Consider offering rewards and incentives for larger contributors
- Offer students leadership opportunities and take advantage of teachable moments
Crowdfunding in New Zealand
- http://idealog.co.nz/venture/2014/02/ultimate-guid...
- https://www.snowballeffect.co.nz/
- https://www.pledgeme.co.nz/
- https://givealittle.co.nz/ (just donations and fundraising for causes and charities)
- http://www.pozible.com/collection/detail/109 (Environmental Crowd funding projects in Australia and around the world)
Building an understanding of business
More and more young people are using crowdfunding platforms to gain public support to seed fund new start ups and early expansion plans for businesses.
Other ideas that students can use to build an understanding of business, entrepreneurship, marketing, target markets, sales, budgeting and economics include:
- Creating a online shop on a low cost platform such as etsy.com. Online shops can allow students to sell items as diverse as art, crafts, digital assets such as Minecraft characters and simple services eg. car grooming, garage sorting, pet minding etc
- Set up a school-wide or community-based pop-up fair where parents with businesses can sell slow moving or end of line products by hiring a stand where the community can shop.
- Create a community garden at the school and grow vegetables for sale at farmers markets or to parents. Choose seasonal items that make for great after school snacks (for parents to buy) such as strawberries and carrots.
Resources for teachers and students
Young Enterprise offers a range of enterprise programmes and financial literacy resources that can be used by teachers throughout New Zealand. Each resource is designed for a specific age group, and aligns to the New Zealand Curriculum. http://www.youngenterprise.org.nz/
OpenIDEO - Can be a part of a global community working together to design solutions for the world's biggest problems.
- Use design thinking for issues you care about.
- Exchange ideas with people everywhere.
- Help projects get off the ground.
- Connect with others in your community.
LEADERSHIP - Entrepreneurialism
What do entrepreneurs do?
- They have innovative ideas about making money.
- Take risks.
- Leadership - share their ideas.
- Anyone - who has a passion for something.
- Because the world has opened up - things are changing.
- Making the world a better place to live in.
- Support entrepreneurs, their innovations and thinking.
Look at the skills the students need for the future.
Identify a passion with students and get them to drive their own ideas and businesses.
Who can be an entrepreneur?
Why is this so powerful now?
What must we do as teachers?
Education for Enterprise is about promoting an approach to learning – one that is real, relevant, and gives students responsibility for their learning.
The Vision of NZ Curriculum (2016) is for young people who will be creative, energetic, and enterprising, who will seize the opportunities offered by new knowledge and technologies to secure a sustainable social, cultural, economic, and environmental future for our country
Entrepreneurial Skills
According to Aileron (2017), the top skills every entrepreneur needs are
- Resiliency.
- The ability to weather the ups and downs of any business since it never goes exactly the way the business plan described it. This skill enables the entrepreneur to keep going when the outlook is bleak.
- Focus.
- After setting a long term vision, knowing how to “laser focus” on the very next step to get closer to the ultimate goal. There are so many distracting forces when trying to build a business that this skill is not easy to master.
- Invest for the long-term.
- Most entrepreneurs are not patient and focus only on what comes next, rather than where the company needs to go. Overnight success may take 7 to 10 years. Entrepreneurs need to stop, pause and plan on a quarterly basis.
- Find and manage people.
- Only by learning to leverage employees, vendors and other resources will an entrepreneur build a scalable company. They need to learn to network to meet the right people. Entrepreneurs strive to guarantee they will get honest and timely feedback from all these sources.
- Sell.
- Every entrepreneur is a sales person whether they want to be or not. They are either selling their ideas, products or services to customers, investors or employees. They work to be there when customers are ready to buy. Alternately, they know how to let go and move on when they are not.
- Learn.
- Successful entrepreneurs realize they don’t know everything and the market is constantly changing. They stay up to date on new systems, technology, and industry trends.
- Self-reflection.
- Allow downtime to reflect on the past and plan for the future. Always working only leads to burnout physically and emotionally.
- Self-reliance.
- While there is a lot of help for the entrepreneur, in the end, they need to be resourceful enough to depend on themselves.
Social enterprise is an organisation that applies commercial strategies to maximise improvements in human and environmental well-being - this may include maximising social impact rather than profits for external shareholders. Social enterprises are part of a continuum of enterprise types with different agendas.
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