Page 82 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 20

Economy
Economy

Abigirl Phiri is a Ph.D
student in commerce,
free-lance writer, poet, Internation-
al Ambassador of Peace, GBV
activist, social entrepreneur, talent
manager and an international mar-
keter. More of her work can be
found on her Facebook Page:
Words are forever.

The

MISCONCEPTION OF

ENTREPRENEURSHIP
ENTREPRENEURSHIP

ntrepreneurship, like any entrepreneurship are looked down academic entrepreneurship involves
other discipline, can be upon due to the fact that many scholars that have chucked the ivory
learnt and taught at the people are in the dark with regards tower mentality that university re-
Esame time. That said, to the beauty of this discipline. In searchers used to harbor in yester-
through this way an individual can my own opinion, what better way years. Instead, now these academic
have the doctrine of entrepreneur- is there to conscientize and educate entrepreneurs are working towards
ship on the tip of their fingers. This people about entrepreneurship than creating new technology offices and
is because there is this misconcep- teaching them about the nitty grit- patenting their prototypes before
tion that always causes a heated de- ties of this discipline. Henceforth, starting either spin offs or their own
bate which claims entrepreneurship this line of thinking that entrepre- small high tech venture business.
cannot be taught nor learnt. Thus, neurship is not a discipline must
this is an interesting misconception be chucked into a dust bin. One of Evidently, academic entrepreneurs
people have about entrepreneurship. the forefathers of entrepreneurship are on the forefront of all this new
In particular, American universities that is Peter Drucker even indicated change in higher learning educa-
were the first to realize that it can that entrepreneurship like any other tional institutions. Indeed through
be taught when they introduced discipline can be taught and learnt. academic entrepreneurship research-
entrepreneurship way back in the es, ventures are being started which
early 1940’s. To be frank, they even Pressing the same argument, this is are enabling these scholars and their
went a notch further by teaching the reason why we have academic educational institutions to get new
entrepreneurship MBA’s which entrepreneurship as a standalone streams of money for their day to
have started to take root currently form of this discipline. Neverthe- day operations. In the same vein,
in African countries as well. This less, many hordes of people claim that is why the Silicon Valley has
is no wonder why Africa is lagging there is nothing of that sort. The managed to do much in the cre-
behind as compared to the rest of truth of the matter is that entrepre- ation of microchips in conjunction
other continents. Adding to that, neurship comes in different forms, with the Stanford University which
individuals who choose to study shapes and sizes. In this instance, played a pivotal role in enabling its
birth.

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