Session 6: Education and Entrepreneurs: Matching Brains and Business
Date: Thursday 26 April 12 - 04:45 pm to 05:45 pm
Type: Interactive sessions
It is widely known that education is the key to personal success and that it lays a foundation for sustained economic growth. However, many curricula often barely teach the content and mentality to become an entrepreneur or engineer. As a result, the European labour market is flooded with (under) graduates in ‘soft’ fields, while Europe is lacking skilled workers in for example engineering or specialised factory jobs. It is the talent pipe-line, stupid! SMEs, enterprises, innovation: if you do not offer science and entrepreneurship in the talent pipe-line, you won’t get engineers our entrepreneurs out. Besides being biased, the European educational system is characterized by a high amount of drop-outs, which is a loss of capital and talent. In the meantime, the best European students mainly leave to attend US universities and often do not return afterwards, which is a loss of talent for Europe. Why is education in entrepreneurship so much overlooked? Are personal educational choices the only explanation for the mismatches on the labour market? How to solve these mismatches? How to create networks and relationships between large businesses, SMEs and educational institutions? How to promote cross-sector mobility? How could we win back the hearts and minds of the best and the brightest?
Moderator
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Christophe Leclercq
Founder and Publisher of EurActiv.com
Speakers
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Carlos Nuno Oliveira
Secretary of State of Entrepreneurship, Competitiveness and Innovation of the Portuguese Government
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Diego Canga Fano
Head of Cabinet of Vice-President Antonio Tajani Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship, European Commission
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Julie O’Neill
President of Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC)
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Lauritz Holm-Nielsen
Rector of Aarhus University (Denmark)
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Yves de Talhouët
Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Hewlett-Packard Company