The Development of Entrepreneurs Based upon Entrepreneurial Competencies: The “Jóvenes con Empresa” Program

The formation of entrepreneurs is a process in which countless social, psychological, cultural and economical variables and a set of specific skills and knowledge contribute to develop a series of competences that seek the achievement of success by the entrepreneur in training, therefore making him/her capable to generate social and economical well-being to the community that surrounds him/her throughout all his/her life. This research, whose main objective was to generate an entrepreneur training model took into consideration: the entrepreneurial career cycle, diverse elements concerning the general entrepreneurial theory, CDEE’s experiences obtained throughout 21 years of continuous activity with all kinds of public, and the empirical experience obtained from young Colombian’s entrepreneurs from different Colombian regions. As a result of this analysis an entrepreneurial model based upon two elements: First; entrepreneurial competences understood as the skills, behaviours, attitudes, values and knowledge necessary for the successful practice of entrepreneurship along time. Second; Entrepreneurial Career Plan understood as a short, medium and long term goals situated in varied contexts practiced by an entrepreneur with the means, limitations and strengths necessary to achieve success. This model is based upon 6 training interrelated stages: Entrepreneurial spirit, Generation and evaluation of business ideas, Evaluation of business opportunities, Elaboration of a business plan, Starting process, Growth and development. Each of these stages is supported by an educational process with specially allocated resources. 500 teachers, counselors and mentors, affiliated to 44 universities, incubators, NGO (non government organizations) and government entities have been trained in Colombia with this model and are to ready act in the development of the program “Jóvenes con Empresa” which in turn will have a coverage of 10,000 university students.