An enterprising education

The government wants to make the UK the best place in the world to start and grow a business. If this is to happen, students and graduates are going to play a big part. As Brown looks across the pond to the ‘enterprise culture’ of the USA, where Larry Page created Google almost from his dorm room, and Facebook, the brainchild of Harvard graduate Mark Zuckerberg, has just been valued at £15bn, he must be wondering if the UK will start to see similar graduate success stories from our own universities.

The signs are looking good. According to the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE), 11% of students are currently engaged in ‘enterprise and entrepreneurship related activities’, a steady increase from ten years ago. But this is still compared to 50% of US students. So what’s causing the difference?

Entrepreneurialism in the UK is getting more publicity than ever before. TV programmes The Apprentice and Dragons’ Den have both made a huge impact in the way in which entrepreneurialism is regarded. Traditionally, becoming an entrepreneur was seen as a respectable career in the US, but it did not have the same status in the UK. Strange as it may seem, Alan Sugar and Peter Jones have arguably done more to change this than the PM’s initiatives ever could.

And budding entrepreneurs are now able to access a plethora of information about starting and funding a business venture. Websites such as www.businessweek.co.uk, www.growingbusiness.com, www.enterpriseweek.co.uk, www.startups.co.uk and www.berr.gov.uk offer help for young hopefuls who need advice about anything from funding to legal issues.

Anne Haswell, International Business student at Northumbria University, believes her generation has seen increasing support for enterprise-minded students:

“There is so much advice and help out there now, that the opportunities are boundless for young entrepreneurs. Unfortunately that does mean that competition is now higher than ever before and it has become increasingly difficult to come up with something ‘original’ – but that’s just the nature of the beast!”

Government initiatives and high-profile entrepreneurs are also concentrating on spreading the entrepreneurial word among the young. For example serial entrepreneur Oli Barrett launched the Make Your Mark with a Tenner Challenge, an initiative in which 10,000 students were given £10 and just one month to generate as much profit and social impact as they could. Says Matt Thomas, editor of Startups: “Credit must go to the government's Enterprise Insight projects such as Make Your Mark, What If!, and the Social Enterprise Coalition for channelling enterprise funding and support to young people of diverse backgrounds.”

And institutions such as banks are also getting involved in the new wave of entrepreneurialism: in 2008 we will see the results of the HSBC Unipreneurs Awards – which aim to discover and encourage a new generation of university educated entrepreneurs.

The number and profile of young entrepreneurs is consequently rising. Fraser Doherty, for example, is only 18 and is currently managing director of Eat Super Ltd, which produces a range of no added sugar ‘super fruit’ spreads - SuperJams. He was hailed the 2007 Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the NatWest Startups Awards and his product is gracing the shelves in leading supermarkets. “He’s evidence of entrepreneurial potential now being fulfilled at an early age and not lost inside large organisations that seldom recognise the value of young talented people,” says Thomas.