iEntrepreneur

With less than 5 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. produces approximately 25 percent of the world’s economic output. Our nation makes, grows, builds, sells, buys, and uses more goods and services than any other country. How did it come about? That’s a question that is easy to answer. Much of our economic success is the result of our understanding and appropriate use of three things — technology, industry and entrepreneurship.

Technology
Technology refers to all of the techniques that people have developed over time in order to serve human needs. Some of these techniques are rather simple, while others are quite sophisticated. Some have made only minor impact on humanity, while others have had profound effects. Both early and present day technologies are discussed in the first part of iEntrepreneur. Here you will also find a model to help understand just about any technological event that you might come across, both now and in the future.

Industry
Industry refers to the institution in our society that is responsible for producing the goods and services we all desire. It utilizes people, money machines, and materials, plus the vast fund of technological knowledge that we have accumulated during our relatively brief existence on this earth. It produces these goods and services in return for a monetary profit. Industry has done more than just meet the material needs of our people. It has played an important part in the shaping of our nation and our culture. Providing you with a conceptual framework for understanding contemporary industry is the goal of the second section of iEntrepreneur.

Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship — the formation of new, small business enterprises — is important to our society. New businesses are a major source of inventions, innovations and new jobs. Entrepreneurs are the men and women who organize and manage these new businesses, and assume the risks and rewards of our free enterprise system. Guidance in initiating an enterprise of your own is the focus in this part of iEntrepreneur. Here you will have the opportunity to compare your own personality traits with those of other, successful entrepreneurs. You will also learn how to write a business plan. The selection of goods and services — a most important part entrepreneurship — is also covered here.

Elements of Industry
Technology, industry and entrepreneurship all come together again in this section of iEntrepreneur. Things you need to know in order to successfully operate any business enterprise, whether real or simulated, are covered here. Elements of Industry presents users with a conceptual framework for understanding the elements that are common to all enterprises including: management, finance, communication, research and development, physical environment, relationships, materials, processes, energy, purchasing, production, and marketing. More importantly, a variety of interesting activities are provided which will allow you to learn about technology, industry and entrepreneurship by actually doing technology, industry and entrepreneurship.

Simulations
Simulations are the subject of the final unit. Simulation is a technique that allows us to examine something that would be difficult to study directly — in this case a real-world business enterprise. Complete instructions are provided here for setting up and operating student-run companies within an educational environment. Teachers may want to use this section to help prepare today’s youngsters to become tomorrow’s business leaders.