Youth Entrepreneurship – An Overview

Youth is the Future of every nation & inheritors of the earth tomorrow. This statement stands true in every sense. When a country has a healthy youth population, you will find the country making headway in terms of overall development and progress. A country with high aging population and lower youth population has a lot of problems to content with that can slow its growth.

The world today has transited into a ‘Technology Era’. Technology has enabled progress in all fields and all societies. Technological revolution has changed the face of lives of people bringing healthcare, information and connectivity to even the most remote areas that were hereto isolated.

Globalisation has brought countries together and created entire world market. We are seeing a lot of changes in the international political map of the world. Countries are beginning to show determination to move from the old age monarchies and dictatorial regimes towards democracy.

Progress and challenges go hand in hand. One of the major challenges faced by most of the countries in the world today is to do with Youth unemployment. The overall unemployment rate is growing at an alarming speed. Amongst the unemployed, the unemployment of youth seems to be alarming. The current global youth population is estimated to be at 1.5 billion of which 620 million are employable and ninety percent of this population live in developing countries. Countries like India and China have a fast increasing youth population and the rate of unemployment too is rising rapidly. As per ILO’s prediction approximately 660 million youth will be seeking employment by 2015. The youth unemployment is higher measuring up to 50-60% in Asia.

The above figures stand to reveal the fact that Global youth unemployment could boomerang to become a global crises causing social and economical impact on all countries besides pushing the economies and progress backward. Though every government as well as World Organisations do frame policies and promote schemes as well as funds to promote youth employment programs, the quantum of such effort is negligible when compared to the huge numbers.

Governments are focussed on looking at framework and strategies to creating new jobs and increasing employment rates. However there is an urgent need for the policy makers to look specifically at the Youth unemployment and related issues. In some of the countries youth entrepreneurship is being recognised as a promising alternative and is being actively promoted by various agencies. If promoted actively, Youth entrepreneurship can help sustain growing economies; integrate youth into the workforce besides leading to overall development of society.

Entrepreneurship in any society is a sign of progress. The IT business in US has been the bedrock for youth entrepreneurship and created stars and multi-millionaires in Bill Gates, Steve Jobs to Google’s Sergy Brin and Larry Page and many more. There are similar such stories in other countries too. However, the need of the day is to create many more stars and make available the opportunities for every youth to dream big and try their hands at entrepreneurship.

Youth entrepreneurship has an impact on social as well as cultural and economic progress of the society. Building an environment that promotes creatively and provides opportunities for entrepreneurship calls for multi pronged strategies implementation and involvement at all levels including Government, industry, political, social as well as educational sectors.

Working towards Youth Entrepreneurship programs can help solve as well as avoid a lot of problems that are currently staring at the countries and pave way for a better future and progressive societies world over.