Australia is one of the luckiest countries in the world, there’s no doubt about it. We’re blessed with a democratic government, a productive economy and a beautiful country. But our young people are currently being underserved.
You’ll probably have noticed the government’s change of tune over the past six months. The resources boom is coming to an end, and we need to kickstart the ‘ideas boom’ if we want to keep up our great quality of life.
Entrepreneurship, innovation and social entrepreneurship are becoming regular words to hear on the telly. And yet there’s a crucial activity that currently isn’t occurring that will make this boom possible to realise. Our young people need to be educated with the practical skills of entrepreneurship to create these jobs of the future.
There’s been a small boom in programs, accelerators, incubators, courses and initiatives that teach young australians entrepreneurship skills in a variety of settings. But pretty much every program has been unable to scale beyond a small cohort because of the nature of their delivery models – face to face.
I started my first business at the age of 16, reselling different vitamin brands on eBay. Until I was about 22 my business mindset had been wholly capitalist. However, a few years ago I started to become aware of the problems around access to entrepreneurship education for other young australians who were contemplating a similar journey that I have been on.
Currently, the lucky young people (including myself) that get involved in the limited programs on offer tend to be either fairly ambitious, networked, well-off or super smart. That leaves behind a whole bunch of people who don’t get to participate in these programs. I went through the Angelcube accelerator program last year, but 194 other applicants got turned away. Other peers of mine have been lucky enough to get into Young Social Pioneers, Australia’s best social entrepreneurship accelerator, but hundreds more get turned away because of limited available numbers.
We’ve started JobHack.org to tackle this problem.
JobHack is a free, online, annual entrepreneurship challenge. Participants learn the practical skills of entrepreneurship through 7 online challenges so they are empowered to create their own jobs. Each challenge takes no more than an hour to complete and builds an applicable skill in areas such as validation, design, marketing, digital, pitching and so on. It will occur every year during Global Entrepreneurship Week, November 14th to the 21st.
If you work with an audience of people who would be interested in JobHack then get in touch via [email protected]
If you’re interested in learning those skills to create your own job then head to the website to register (takes about 5 seconds).
Nathan Murphy is the founder of JobHack.org – an initiative that aims to democratise access to experiential entrepreneurship education for young people all over the world. He is passionate about startups, youth entrepreneurship and social impact. Nathan has been regularly featured in the Sydney Morning Herald, StartupSmart, DynamicBusiness, Under30CEO, StartupDaily, AustraliaUnlimited and on radio and TV for his different companies and entrepreneurial adventures. An experienced and confident speaker, he has twice delivered TEDx talks on the power of entrepreneurial thinking and his story from the streets to the boardroom.
