Youth Entrepreneurship 

 

One out of five people in the world is between 15 and 24 years of age and over 85 percent of them live in developing countries. As such youth could be the drivers of present day development. Many youth are however excluded from this process. They are often marginalized and overlooked. Also in the labour market youth are not fully participating: the world unemployment rate is much higher for young people than for adults. Although youth unemployment is an increasing problem all over the world, it is most severe in developing and transition countries. Many youth in these countries try to cope with their unemployment problems by engaging in self-employment. They engage in self-employment enterprise activities with other motives than youth in Europe or the US do. In many developing countries self-employment is considered the only way out of poverty: youth set up business not to make profit, but to survive.

 

Youth entrepreneurship has an extremely important economic value as it provides youth with a possibility to foresee in their livelihoods. It also has an social value since it brings youth (back) into the society. Although the importance of self-employment and entrepreneurship in a developing context is currently widely acknowledged, this subject is according to Lingelbach and others ‘the least studied significant economic and social phenomenon in the world today’ (2005). Furthermore there are according to Frances Chigunta insufficient efforts to look at entrepreneurship from a youth angle and there is little research that looks at the needs of youth who want to become self-employed (2002).

 

Youth SEEN 

 

Youth SEEN is an international network of (currently) 12 organizations that are all engaged in youth and entrepreneurship. The core members of the network are:

 

UpToYouToo Foundation (Netherlands)
YIKE - Youth Initiatives Kenya (Kenya)
Peace Child International (UK)
UnLtd (UK)
Making Cents International (USA)
YES Rwanda (Rwanda)
YES Jordan (Jordan
Spark (Netherlands)
BSC Kosovo (Kosovo)
Change Fusion (Thailand)
Branson School of Entrepreneurship (South Africa)

 

The network aims to share experiences in the field of youth entrepreneurship and to put the importance of youth entrepreneurship as a means of creating a sustainable livelihood for youth, on the international agenda. The ultimate goal of the network is to increase and improve entrepreneurship and self-employment opportunities for young people, especially in developing countries, through both mapping of existing resources and enabling further research by bringing the member organizations in contact with Master students looking to conduct research in this field.

 

Possible Research subjects 

 

• Gender issues; the role of women in youth entrepreneurship
• Study of incubators and their role in youth entrepreneurship
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR); role of corporations in stimulating youth entrepreneurship
• Societal and cultural influences on undertaking entrepreneurship
• Trade systems; how do they affect youth entrepreneurship
• How to stimulate innovation
• Education and training young entrepreneurs
• Access to financial assistance and start-up capital
• Market access for youth entrepreneurs
• Entrepreneurship in post conflict societies
• Role of local stakeholders
• Mapping/evaluation of existing organizations active within the field of youth entrepreneurship
• The mentality of youth entrepreneurship

 

Other relevant & related themes can be considered in discussion with students.

 

UpToYouToo and AIESEC 

The network is facilitated by UpToYouToo, a Dutch based NGO that works through its partners YIKE (Kenya) and YITA (Tanzania) with youth in groups that are engaged in entrepreneurship. As the facilitator and organizer of the network, UpToYouToo will be able to link the Dutch students to the mentioned partner organizations abroad.
AIESEC Amsterdam started a partnership in the beginning of 2010 with UpToYouToo. Students of the UvA and the VU can participate in this program an do an internship at one of the organisations of the Youth Seen Network. UpToYouToo maintains the contact with the organisations abroad for raising the suitable internships and AIESEC Amsterdam has the contact with the Local Committees of AIESEC in the chosen countries. In this way, students can find the perfect research internship while the housing is arranged and they are certain of a social (AIESEC) environment.

 

For more information please send an email to amsterdam.exchange@gmail.com