Speech of Dir. Joey G. Pelaez during the 4th Teen Negosyo
CREATING OPPORTUNITIES FOR SELF,
PROVIDING OPPORTUNITIES FOR OTHERS
(Speech of DepED-CSCA Executive Director Joey G. Pelaez during the Orientation Program of the Teen Negosyo University, Teachers Camp, Baguio City, 26 July 2009)
When we set forth for the Department of Education in 1995 and organized what is now the Center for Students and Co-Curricular Affairs, we set our sights on entrepreneurship as our first foray into real and serious program implementation. Barely one year in the office, we conceptualized the Youth Entrepreneurship and Cooperativism in Schools Program or YECS in 1996 and started its implementation in 1997, making it our long and running program so far, indicating also our equally long and running commitment to entrepreneurship education and learning.
It is therefore not surprising that every time we hold this Teen Negosyo, it makes us truly happy and proud to be seeing YECS members, YECS implementors, YECS supporters, entrepreneurship educators and the young and not-so-young would-be entrepreneurs in this annual event. What makes us even prouder and happier is the fact that because of what we are doing together, our entrepreneurial base is now growing, the involvement of our young students in entrepreneurial activities in the grassroots is getting deeper, and the appreciation for entrepreneurship education and learning is becoming wider among us educators.
At the outset, we wish to thank you for being here. We also express our gratitude for all the parents, teachers, school heads, supervisors, superintendents, directors and sponsors who made your presence possible. We also thank Secretary Jesli A. Lapus, Presidential Consultant for Entrepreneurship Joey A. Concepcion III and DTI-PTTC Executive Director Adelaida L. Inton for making the annual Teen Negosyo an event to inspire and equip us all with the proper entrepreneurial knowledge, attitude and skill. These people behind our presence here have given all of us a shot at an opportunity not given to just about anyone in our time. They deserve our sincerity to learn and apply what we have learned when we go back to our respective schools and places. We owe it to them and to ourselves to bring our learning to fruition to benefit others in our communities.
This is the spirit of this five-day entrepreneurship event – it is all about opportunities, seizing them and sharing them to others.
Opportunities now are so scarce and hard to come by. Most of us, without exception, are in search for bigger opportunities. Sadly, however, they are so few and extremely far between. Many of our schoolchildren drop out of school or cannot go to either high school or college because there is just no opportunity for them to continue their schooling. There are many more intelligent students in the country, whose talents are being wasted because no one is giving them that single opportunity to move up the ladder of success or anywhere near.
While we acknowledge the value of talent, hard work, patience and persistence, there is no arguing that success in life is determined largely by the opportunities that we are given. In most autobiographies and write-ups of successful billionaires and celebrities, including rags-to-riches stories of known individuals, the story line is always the same: they started poor with all the attributes of squalor and uncertainty, and by sheer talent and skill were able to rise against all odds. These storylines give full recognition solely to the individuals’ reach of the unreachable star thru their personal attributes alone. What these stories do not show, however, are the streams of opportunities these successful individuals were given at some points in their lives. These people who we look up to in politics, academe and business may appear like they did it all by themselves. They were, however, the beneficiaries of extraordinary opportunities that allowed them to maximize their talents and work hard in ways others cannot.
Let us take the case of Bill Gates. To quote the famous international best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell in his book entitled Outliers,
“His story is almost as well known as the Beatles’. Brilliant, young math whiz discovers computer programming. Drops out of Harvard. Starts a little computer company called Microsoft with his friends. Through sheer brilliance and ambition and guts, builds it into the giant of the software world.
According to Gladwell, Bill Gates could not have been what he is now had it not been for the enormous strings of opportunities seldom given to anyone during his time.
“Opportunity number one was that Gates got sent by his parents to Lakeside, a private school that catered to Seattle’s elite families, where he got to do real-time programming as an eighth grader in 1968 through its computer club which installed a remarkable kind of computer not available to even colleges during his time which used the laborious computer-card system. Opportunity number two was that the mothers of Lakeside had enough money to pay for the school’s computer fees. Number three was that, when the money ran out, one of the parents happened to work at the Computer Center Corporation who gave Gates free programming time during weekends. Number four was that Gates just happened to find out about an outfit called Information Sciences Inc. which agreed to give him and his friends free 1,575 hours of computer time in exchange for working on a piece of software that could be used to automate company payrolls. Number five was that Gates happened to live within walking distance of the University of Washington. Number six was that the university happened to have free computer time between three and six in the morning.” And so on, and so forth.
“These opportunities gave Bill Gates extra time to practice programming. By the time Gates dropped out of Harvard after his sophomore year to try his hand at his own software company, he had been programming practically non-stop for seven consecutive years. How many teenagers in the world had the kind of experience Gates had?” Not much. Not many. Not even a few.
“The lesson here is very simple. But it is striking how often it is overlooked. We are so caught in the myths of the best and the brightest and the self-made that we think they spring naturally from the earth. We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed that thirteen-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur. But that’s the wrong lesson. Our world only allowed one thirteen-year-old unlimited access to a time-sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsofts would we have today? To build a better world, we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success… with a society that provides opportunities for all.”
A society that provides opportunities for all – is what we endeavor to achieve with entrepreneurship. Indeed, entrepreneurship is all about opportunities. Entrepreneurs create opportunities for self in order to provide more opportunities for others. This, we believe, is the core of entrepreneurship. And at the heart of this core is the value of generosity being practiced in every turn.
That is how the Good Shepherd Sisters’ cottage business came about. According to Sr. Terry Danganan, who once managed the Mountain Maid Training Center, makers of the famous ube jam and peanut brittle of Baguio City, they put up the business not just to make money but to primarily finance the education of the poor not only in Baguio but all over the Philippines. The good nuns do not only provide opportunities for thousands of young men and women from less fortunate families to finish their college education, they also help others find job while giving them values formation in the training center.
This is the same story Marlane Villareal, president of Buena Mano Crafts, has. Her enterprise that makes handcrafted Christmas decors for sale here and abroad began as an advocacy as much as a business. She would befriend some of the people who lived in the surrounding area of her house, including women from Antipolo’s depressed areas to give them jobs more than anything, teaching them how to do smocking and hand-quilting. Eventually, she was doing a successful business while creating livelihood for others.
Maricel Evangelista, owner of a Palochina furniture-making business and a Citi Microentrepreneur Awardee, had a different take on her role as an entrepreneur who is now recognized by her clients from Japan and Thailand. Coming from a very humble beginning and only a high school graduate, she invested in good relationships with her community in Laguna, especially with the carpenters in her neighborhood, when she ventured into furniture-making. Six years later, she would sell wood for furniture to neighbors who would want to start a business like theirs. She would go to the extent of assisting them start their furniture business because she believes in helping her community and enhancing her neighbors’ lives.
These are just some of the inspiring stories of women entrepreneurs featured in the book of Presidential Consultant for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion on Go Negosyo – an equally generous book that inspires our people to walk the path of entrepreneurship, giving opportunities for all of us to emulate examples of successful entrepreneurs who have made a difference in our society.
There is no doubt that entrepreneurs build a nation. They are exceptionally significant. In his address during the recently-held National Science and Technology Week, Fr. Beinvenido Nebres, SJ, President of Ateneo de Manila University and a leading Filipino scientist and educator, said that entrepreneurs must be taken seriously because they bring wealth, opportunities and talent towards development. In fact, histories of other countries indicate such key role in their development.
This is why we are enormously and truly serious in making entrepreneurship a viable option for our schoolchildren to enable them, young as they are, to create opportunities for self and others thru this Teen Negosyo. This edition which we dubbed as Teen Negosyo University, the only university in high school, is our way to underscore the importance and urgency of entrepreneurship among our young in the country. We want to make Teen Negosyo a unique way of entrepreneurship education and learning where every teenager is given the chance to dream big and make it happen by learning the ropes of doing business this early from the experts and successful entrepreneurs themselves.
This Teen Negosyo University goes beyond this five-day entrepreneurship event. It extends to our respective schools where we are expected to apply and practice what we have learned from the speakers, lecturers and workshop facilitators. Our teachers, administrators and supervisors who accompanied us here will serve as our personal mentors to develop us more and give us enough confidence to undertake our own business activities. And the school will be our business laboratory and the school community, our clients. As overseers, the organizers will serve as our deans who are ready to assist us in ways possible. At the end of the school year, a graduation of sorts will recognize those who made it, either individually or as a group, in real and actual business.
Under the YECS program, the DepED Center for Students and Co-Curricular Affairs, in partnership with the Department of Trade and Industry-Philippine Trade Training Center, will conduct a re-training and re-tooling of all YECS implementors to start with the participants of this year’s edition of the Teen Negosyo which will happen after our YECS Evaluation and Planning Conference in Cagayan de Oro City in September.
Undeniably, opportunities are too few and extremely far between. Entrepreneurship will multiply them and make them readily available for us. We therefore ask for your sincerity, passion, commitment and hard work to make our programs real and effective learning tools to develop young entrepreneurs. Our schoolchildren do not need anything except that rare chance to make it in this world. And the chance to be an entrepreneur might just be what they truly need.
And when you, my dear students, have created opportunities for yourselves, be generous to provide opportunities for others so that they too will be inspired to give more opportunities for others also, creating a generous cycle of opportunity-making and opportunity-giving.
There are a lot of people who only need to be given a single shot at an opportunity to be successful. Let us look for them. Let us not fail them. Let us be the society that generously provides opportunities for all thru entrepreneurship.
Happy Teen Negosyo! Thank you very much and God Bless!
