Fostering entrepreneurship & relationships
for social impact and accelerating Sustainable Development Goals.
Global Entrepreneurship Week 2018: “Partners in Life and Business”
On November 17, 2018, Cornerstone Economics was organizer and host of a Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) Event, with the topic: “Partners in Life and Business”. This is the second year in a row that Cornerstone Economics, a social enterprise consultancy firm, dedicates an intimate event to entrepreneurs in Aruba as part of its social impact initiative. In 2017, the GEW event was dedicated to women entrepreneurs.
The United Nations has strongly endorsed entrepreneurship as an important means of accelerating SDGs. The role of entrepreneurs is key for socio-economic challenges, from creating jobs, driving economic growth, addressing environment challenges, inclusion, education and so on. Entrepreneurship partners with innovation, and innovation is an engine for solutions to the goals presented by the UN.
Cornerstone Economics is a business advocating for sustainable businesses that exist for specific purposes; business models that consider social impact and financial viability for sustainable communities. In light hereof, this year’s conference was dedicated to couples in business.
It might sound a little bit corny or sentimental, but the subject “Partners in Life and Business” is a reflection or an analogy of other relationships and partnerships in the community, working parties that work together for a common goal, in business or in life.
When couples / partners work together, there are many factors to consider; personal factors, personal journey, personal ambitions, personal potential, personal contribution etc.
However, harnessing the potential of that relationship for a common purpose, can have a great impact on a society; for example, strong and healthy families.
During the GEW 2018 event, 5 entrepreneurial couples shared their experience with other couples and individuals on how they manage to do business, while considering and managing their own relationships. Topics such as work-life balance, business finances, roles, relationships, and so on. There is a saying that says “kill two birds with one stone”; working as a team, in this case “partners” can have great impact in inspiring entrepreneurship to others, whether they are affectionate couples, or simply business partners (employees, employer etc.). In addition, a life coach also presented some tips for the journey to all present. Qredits was also present to provide information about their attractive business loans and coaching.
The GEW was a gathering of total of 27 people, among from which were partners, couples and individuals. The setting was warm and familiar, presentations were given in the form of interviews. People in the audience were able to ask intimate and open questions. Even though the group was relatively small, we are content with their satisfaction of the conference.
The evaluation of the conference was rated at an average of 1.6, between a score of 1 to 5 (with 1 being very good and 5 being very poor). The evaluation shows that the information was very helpful to participants; about 88.9 percent of the participants felt empowered after the conference and 77.8 percent are planning to take concrete action to improve or start their own business, which is satisfying considering the objective of the event. We must note though that we did not receive all forms filled in.
We want to thank our partners for this event; Qredits, Subway and Safecom; they truly showed what partnership and contribution can mean to others in business.
Below a remark of one of the participants:
“Getting different aspects from different couples and personalities on how to balance it all better was sure helpful even though I'm not planning on starting a business right now. I can imagine for people that do, going a bit more in depth and getting more insight on certain technical aspects on how to start up from scratch was missing a bit, but the focus of the event was different. Having real couples in the field and all being so different and sharing their experiences, the good and the bad and how they got thru, sure met my expectation for the evening. I'm not planning on starting a business right now, but sure grasped on some things that I will indeed apply in everyday life”
We want to finish with this quote:
“The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same."
-- Colin R. Davis
Thank you to all who are always part of both roads.
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