Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Solutions to hunger and corruption

In Negosyo Today, a newsletter of the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship, Joey Concepcion and other accomplished Pinoy entrepreneurs shared their thoughts on how we can solve hunger and corruption in our country. The article was in response to recent news ranking the Philippines high up in terms of hunger and corruption.

Concepcion believes the solution to hunger is "teaching our nation how fish". He pointed out that to his knowledge, no Pinoy has gone hungry overseas and that they are the most enterprising workers in any country they are in. But why are they poor in our own country? According to him, although studies show that we have high propensity for entrepreneurship, most are micro or small, often characterized as survival microentrepreneurs. There is a need to encourage, advise and empower them to be agents of innovations in any product or service they provide.

Manny Pangilinan of PLDT says "we can develop a national culture of enterpreneurship". Socorro Ramos of National Bookstore thinks "the key is education at all levels" and that "entrepreneurship should be discussed as early as high school or even at the elementary school level".

Santi Araneta of LBC Mabuhay USA Corporation says "government, both at the national and local level, must establish that is business-friendly" and that "red tape should be cut and government workers should be trained to serve professionally". Aloysius Colayco of Level Up International believes "entrepreneurs are often born but can also be taught" and that "the best teaching is by example".

Colayco thinks that we should publicize success particularly by people who started with nothing or surmounted great obstacles in building their businesses. Joey Gurango of Webworks agrees saying, "to succeed in any field of endeavor, we need role models". Ardy Roberto of Salt and Light Ventures says we should start them young by integrating enterpreneurship in our school curriculum. Read the full article at www.gonegosyo.net.

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