Generation Entrepreneur

For the current generation, innovation is key.

By Maureen Lu, Staff writer

Today’s generation of 16 to 34 year olds, known as Millennials, are marking  career paths that are quite different from the previous generation.

Compared to the clearly planned careers of the previous generation, young social entrepreneurs do not necessarily strive for linear professional paths. We move around. Start businesses. We are in a world heavily affected by the culture of salespeople. Everyone is selling something, because even if they aren’t literally selling products, they are selling themselves through the self-images we created in social media. On Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Flickr, people design, promote, manage and sell the brand they create for themselves. Growing up in the generation of consumption, the youth of today are an entrepreneurial generation.

Rock ’n’ rollers used to be the symbol of rebels. For the new generation, however, the Rock’n’roller is no longer the symbol of our time. We belong to a “post-emotional” generation, and entrepreneurship is the spirit of the millennial generation.

The word “entrepreneur” involves much more than launching a startup, but also a perception of the world—an individual’s state of mind. Associated with innovation and risk-taking, an entrepreneur is primarily a businessperson with the ability to generate new ideas, create new products, increase efficiency and productivity, and fill a gap in the consumer lifestyle. It is definitely a label that holds a certain appeal.

On the other hand, parents are often frustrated by the vague dreams of their children. Recently, there has been a lot of criticism of the youth of our nation, some of which even makes the news: spouting concerns over ever-changing interests and priorities, little patience and lack of long-term commitment, some believe that young leaders can be naïve, immature, undisciplined, inexperienced, and ignorant in ways that may be harmful or even catastrophic to an organization.

In the eyes of the previous generation, the millennial culture is simply too easy to describe: skinny pants, piercings, ironic t-shirts, tattoos and video games. But what is lurking underneath that hipster exterior?

David Murphy was born in 1981. Like many of his millennial peers, he chose a less rigid career path and traveled around the world. It is hard to believe that, without any Chinese connection or family members of Chinese background, Murphy fell in love with the language when he accidentally had a Chinese class in primary school.

After graduating with an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in Chinese Studies, Murphy worked at ITS Global, a policy consultancy in Melbourne, Australia for 2 years. He was specializing in writing and presenting reports on business and government policies towards China.

“My job was to analyze how Chinese cultures policies affected its businesses with Australia, especially at the time when Australia is negotiating a Free Trade Agreement with Chinese Government,” Murphy explained. For the most part, Murphy had a dream job until he quit and moved to Beijing when he decided to have his own business in consultancy.

“But, I need to practice my language and presentation skills first,” Murphy said. “I decided to go to China”.Murphy

Murphy spent one year in Tsinghua University in Chinese language study, and another year working for oil energy consultancy in Beijing and Hong Kong, before he started his own business in Melbourne.

“When I discovered that there is a lack of information and voices from the Chinese academic domain, I felt I [had] the opportunity to fill the gap and start something different,” Murphy explained. “I don’t have business degrees or skills, but when I had the knowledge, [the] business is not something you learn from [a] book. You learn it from the real world practice”.

Facing the criticism to the young entrepreneur, Murphy says that this criticism is largely unfounded.

“The old generations criticize us [because of our] lack of responsibility, and [says that] we are not consistent about what we want and what we are doing. If there is no immediate outcome, we give up,” he says. “I don’t know whether it is new to our generation… [These] type of questions [have] always existed, no matter what generation you are”.

Instead of the criticism that Millenials are irresponsible and indecisive, Murphy suggests that the current generation is impacted by an evolving job market.

“Everything is more flexible now. We have less rigid definition[s] of career[s],” he explains. “You don’t just go to university, get a job, get married and have children. We are happy to move around. Most of us don’t spend more than two years at one job, [and some] of the businesses we are doing [now didn’t] even exist during our father’s generation, because of the Internet.”

The depressed job market also contributes to the popularity of entrepreneurship among young people. Figures from the International Labour Organisation show that 75 million young people world-wide are unemployed, which is 6 percent of all 15- to 24-year-olds. The Economist alsocalculates that almost 290 million youth world-wide, or nearly one quarter of the planet’s youth, are neither working nor studying.

There are two main reasons for this generation of unemployment: the first one is the financial crisis and the recession. Secondly, a decrease in job-related skills training and education opportunities have caused a mismatch of what young people can offer and what employees are looking for.

Employers tend to sack the newest hires who have less experiences and connections. In Greece and Spain, over one sixth of the youth are jobless. The fast growing youth populations in developing countries also intensify the scarcity of opportunities in the job market.

The youth have become the least powerful group of people, with the least capitals and assets, and the least experience and connections to support themselves.. At the same time, it is the young people who have suffered most in this economy. Entrepreneurship is one alternative way to relieve the depressed job market. Young entrepreneurs can provide employment and opportunities for more youth through their own businesses.

Yijia Li is a PhD student in neuroscience at the University of Melbourne. He also founded the Melbourne Pioneer Foundation, the first foundation in Melbourne to help Chinese international students in Melbourne to start their own businesses.

“We [are supporting] a graduate student from Melbourne University [in starting] his own a business in customized high quality leather shoes,” Li says. “It is not only the shoes business that we are supporting, but also a spirit of exploration.”

Most Chinese students in Melbourne are from wealthy families and growing up as the only child in the family, Li explains, which helps contribute to the negative stereotypes of the Millenials.

“They lack the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation because they simply don’t need to [be innovative] in their lives,” Li explains. “[At the Melbourne Pioneer Foundation,] we want to make a difference, and we want to help more young students make a difference.”

In the fields of social engagement and civic inclusion, it is not only future adults that can make a difference when they grow up. Young people are innovative, motivated, unafraid to take risks, and ready to tackle critical social issues in their communities. They are actively involved in international organizations, volunteering and economic forums.

Yuan is a Chinese background social entrepreneur based in Melbourne, who is determined to go back to China soon to start his own business to help tackle China’s severe pollution and food security problems. Yuan wants to start a business in school gardening in China. He plans to introduce the School Gardening Program from Melbourne to primary schools in China. He is working with several international schools in Nanjing to start his program. In his program, he notes that children can experience the funs in planting and farming, while the harvest can goes to the school cafeteria.

“Parents would love that because they know what their kids are eating. Media will love it as well, because it promotes an eco- and low-carbon life style,” said Yuan after his visit to the school gardening sites in Melbourne. “We can also use the profits from the school gardening to help poor students in rural China.”

Although there is much potential in entrepreneurship particularly in helping to turn around the job market, the overwhelming entrepreneurship among the youth also reveals the problems of the current school education. The risk and danger of today’s education is that it is based on a world that no longer exists. Education continues to focus on subjects and disciplines while overlooking essential job-specific skills and so-called “soft skills” such as empathy, teamwork and leadership and creativity. For social enterprise leaders, the dual responsibilities of social commitment and commercial need calls for excellent leadership ability, team-work, and interpersonal communication skills.

Amidst this new economic climate, young entrepreneurs are seeking ways to set up their own businesses and combine this with passion and innovation to tackle social problems. This leads to a brand new form of entrepreneurship: social enterprise. This process of employing market-based methods to solve social problems continues to grow in popularity as it calls for financially sustainable organizations that can respond to the world’s most pressing problems. Young leaders have to manage conflicting demands that arise from everything from dual commitments to improving social welfare and achieving commercial viability.

Young entrepreneurs are planning and leading incredible businesses and social change projects. As a society, one of the best things we can do for young people is to give them the encouragement, guidance, and space to change the world.

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Maureen Lu is a Chinese-background junior journalist based in Australia. She is currently working towards a Master of Global Media Communications at the University of Melbourne. Her passions include environmental problems, international issues and gender equity.