Journal of an Entrepreneur in High Schools 2012

Last year we started a project and I had no idea where it was going to lead. A year has passed and we can now talk about it.

The goal of this project is to educate and stimulate entrepreneurship in high schools. Entrepreneurship in business and the general receptiveness to search, challenges, the new, the inclination to speak without being asked and, most of all, free thinking. “Out of the box.”

We do this not through lectures, but through informal discussions – which have everything to do with real life; about what’s happening to us and to them. I go to meetings that last as long as they have to last, with students from top high schools. At every meeting, they speak more than I do – and that’s perfect.

What I did last year: I visited 12 high schools in 7 cities and I spoke to more than 700 students. More than 30 teachers and 13 volunteers worked with us to make this possible – thank you all very much.

Experiences: I went to high schools where we were greeted by a hall with 200 students that didn’t know they were allowed to say something too. In other places, I spoke to a class of 15 students. Sometimes we sang together, sometimes we trembled with cold. We talked about everything – about wealth, ethics, career planning, school, college. About Romania vs. abroad in the context of college. About teachers. About opportunities, about frustrations. But most of all – as always – about optimism. About how to take what’s best in life and do something exceptional. I discovered that Iasi has a great academic environment and little entrepreneurship, while in Timisoara things are the other way around 🙂 . I discovered in Targoviste a high school that pestered Iuliana until we managed to go there too, although it was very late and all available days were already booked.

The coolest thing – and in fact what I meant to say in the first place, but I went on about other things instead – is that I visited Ploiesti on Friday. So we started the second year of the project with (the) two high schools in Ploiesti. At Mihai Viteazul High School it was absolutely sensational: I walked into a room with 80 children that – after 5 minutes of texting each other – became 200. Heated discussions followed, in which they had opinions, many questions (questions stopped surprising me a very long time ago, but these youngsters managed to surprise me 🙂 ) and I had no idea that two hours had passed. I don’t know about them, but I left the place feeling 10 years younger and with the conviction that “things are good”. Thank you very much, Mihai Viteazul Ploiesti!

I can’t wait to go to other places. I know that Iuliana (she carries the burden of this project) has a list of high schools to which she intends us to go, but we’ll gladly come wherever we find young people willing to talk about good things, about opportunities. First of all, who are willing to talk :).

See you in high school …

(English version by Teodora Popescu)