Discovering Entrepreneurship with Cisco Networking Academy

Cisco Networking Academy is launching a new course, Discovering Entrepreneurship. In the spirit of encouraging and fostering entrepreneurship, here is how we plan to encourage people with a business idea to turn their dream into reality in Latin America.

Entrepreneurship: The big picture

When we talk entrepreneurship, most would think of the tech billionaires we know as household names. But to do so is to diminish the role that smaller – but still successful – entrepreneurs play in the development of regions like Latin America.

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies¹, “The start-up ecosystem in LAC is having a considerable impact in the region, catalyzing a generation of innovators to increase competitiveness and economic growth.”

It is encouraging that startups in the region often address issues such as financial inclusion, that promote digitization, or improved healthcare, and climate solutions.

According to the World Bank², four of every 10 Latin American youth report a desire to become an entrepreneur.

A less encouraging report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development³ suggested that entrepreneurial activity in the region is more associated with lack of other employment alternatives for young people.

To be fair, both these things can be true. But the demand from education institutions for entrepreneurship courses suggests they may be helpful in both cases: by encouraging entrepreneurial activity and the economic growth it brings; and by helping young people be successful in their entrepreneurial activity.

Developing an entrepreneurial mindset

The entrepreneurial mindset is valuable to existing companies too. One recent study⁴ argues that entrepreneurs possess execution skills uniquely suited for taking new ideas to market. These skills are valuable beyond the start-up context and can be deployed by established firms, particularly to launch new products and services.

Indeed, the entrepreneurial mindset is at the core of Cisco – a company founded by Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner in 1984. The two were not able to email each other from their respective offices at Stanford University because they were on different networks with different local area protocols. They solved this problem by inventing the multiprotocol router. And Cisco was born.

What started by simply solving a problem may have grown into a global corporation, but the innovation skills of those founders continues to be encouraged and fostered at Cisco.⁵

Discovering Entrepreneurship

In the spirit of encouraging and fostering entrepreneurship, Cisco Networking Academy is launching a new course, Discovering Entrepreneurship.

This 20-hour course is the first in a three-part entrepreneurship series, designed to teach the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and develop a solution-oriented approach to problem solving in the workplace.

The Discovering Entrepreneurship course has no prerequisites beyond a high school reading level, basic computer literacy and internet usage skills and is available in English and Spanish. As such, we encourage anyone with an idea to use Discovering Entrepreneurship to get started and begin turning their dreams into reality.

Register today!

Whether you are an aspiring entrepreneur with the next big idea, or you want to sharpen your problem-solving entrepreneurial skills and improve your employability, don’t wait!

For Educators

Exclusive to Cisco Networking Academy Instructors in Latin America

We are excited to offer Cisco Networking Academy educators in Latin America the opportunity to teach Discovering Entrepreneurship courses and participate in our campaign and prize competition:  Bring Out the Entrepreneur in You / Despierta el espírtu emprendedor en ti.

Educators who enroll the highest number of student participants can win some great prizes!

Join us in igniting the entrepreneurial spirit across Latin America through our campaign, “Despierta el espírtu emprendedor en ti” — available for a limited time only. Start teaching today!

Want to join 29,000+ educators around the world? Teach with us at
Cisco Networking Academy for Educators.

Sources

¹  Center for Strategic and International Studies – Catalysts of Change: How Entrepreneurs Are Transforming Latin America

²  World Bank – Entrepreneurship is the trend in Latin America

³  Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) – OECD/CAF/ECLAC (2016), Latin American Economic Outlook 2017: Youth, Skills and Entrepreneurship, OECD Publishing, Paris 

⁴  Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona – Hiring entrepreneurs for innovation (Economics Working Paper Series, Department of Economics and Business, Working Paper 1811)

⁵  Cisco Newsroom – Why this Cisco leader believes every employee can build our boldest innovations

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