Entrepreneurship, Intrapreneurship, Innovation and Technology

How do you prepare students with workplace skills and for jobs that don't currently exist? If outsourcing has a negative impact on future jobs in certain industries, how do we prepare students in this particular field without setting them up for jobs that may no longer be available to them once they have completed their training?

How about giving students exposure to skills that involve the following: creating their own business; developing opportunities within an existing business; creating opportunities for critical thinking and problem solving; and using the latest technology tools in productive ways?

We are exploring more ways to do that at CATEC through instruction tied to Entrepreneurship, Intrapreneurship, Innovation and Use of Technology. At CATEC, students come to the school because they have an interest in a particular field or career. The context and relevancy is there. Now let's expand that interest. (intrapreneurship, by the way, is "a person within a large corporation who takes direct responsibility for turning an idea into a profitable finished product through assertive risk-taking and innovation".

Hypothetical Example? What about the student in our Horticulture Landscaping course who develops a keen interest in turf management? He/she receives instruction on what it takes to open up his/her own turf management business. A business plan is created. Now the student needs to know more about the demographics of the Central Virginia area and where to perhaps provide their service. They use the latest in GPS technologies to determine areas that have more golf courses and areas that provide the best terrain for future courses to be developed. Research, through technology, also gives keen insight as to the competitors and their particular level of service. In emailing managers of golf courses he/she realizes that most of the courses have in-house personnel that take care of their turf. This disappoints the student who realizes that a new, outside firm may not be able to perform their intended tasks. During several conversations however, the student realizes that most golf courses import their Bermuda grass on their courses from Maryland where it is cultivated and shipped south for athletic fields and golf courses. Through more research, the student realizes that there are no suppliers of Bermuda grass between Maryland and North Carolina. So, a little research later and use of his/her parent's backyard, a sod farm is born. Technology skills allow the student to develop a web site where customers can view the product and initiate commerce without ever having personal contact with the student, who, by the way, happens to be in school during the day. Clients are established, a product is refined, a marketing plan is developed and a business starts to grow.

Sound far fetched? Maybe, maybe not. If we provide these skills to students and give them the practical application where they can benefit, not hypothetically, but in real-world experiments and with little risk involved- aren't we truly preparing them for 21st century employment? The result- a lucrative, successful business, or a failed attempt at such? Nonetheless, the ultimate payoff is an experience not replicated through textbooks and a collection of transferable skills for life in any career path.