Amidst all the bad news in Iceland related to the economic crisis and
the disruption caused earlier this year by the Eyjafjallajokull volcano,
the country has seen some entrepreneurial silver linings. The stream of
positive signs I noticed began in March this year when Iceland replaced
the United States as the INSEAD world champion in innovation. Then in Dubai
that same month, Iceland won the Global Entrepreneurship Congress award
for best entrepreneurship movement during the 2009 Global Entrepreneurship Week. And more recently,
entrepreneurship was incorporated into public discourse as a main driver
of economic regeneration when Iceland’s President led a summit in his
country on innovation, entrepreneurship, and green energy. With Iceland
getting so much attention for being on the brink of bankruptcy, I
thought such good news about signs of an entrepreneur-led economic
resurgence deserves note.
Iceland certainly felt the effects of their
unprecedented financial collapse. According to an OECD
report, domestic demand fell sharply in 2009, and the economy
continued to shrink during the first part of this year. The declining
economy, combined with news of excess and corruption in the financial
sector, caused violent protests, the resignation of a government, and a
lingering anger against big business. Kauffman Foundation president and
CEO Carl Schramm’s article in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs
introducing a new area of economic inquiry called expeditionary
economics was well timed for Iceland. Schramm proposes a new model for
how to tackle such collapse whether caused by economic or natural
disasters or conflict that emphasizes the formation and growth of firms,
ideally firms that are capable of scaling and thus employing many
people.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Policy Dialogue on Entrepreneurship | Iceland: Conquering the Economic Crisis with Entrepreneurship
Author: Jonathan Ortmans is president of the Public Forum Institute, a non-partisan organization dedicated to fostering dialogue on important policy issues. In this capacity, he leads the Policy Dialogue on Entrepreneurship, focused on public policies to promote entrepreneurship in the U.S. and around the world. In addition, he serves as a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation.
