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Concerned with the lack of scope of its recent community impact, the Brown Entrepreneurship Program announced this week that it plans to expand its horizons by founding a new organization whose purpose will be to start entrepreneurship programs for elementary school students in the Providence area. The organization has been dubbed the Entrepreneurship Program's Entrepreneurship Program to Start Entrepreneurship Programs.
According to Jonathan Roland '09, President of the EP'sEPtSEPs, "Elementary school students are the future of entrepreneurship. If we don't provide them with the opportunity to express their creativity and managerial skills now, an entire generation of CEOs could be lost without us ever knowing!"
EP Co-President Phyllis Yip '08 echoed Roland's entrepreneurial fervor and explained that the new organization was necessary because the EP itself was far too busy founding other clubs in order to fulfill various goals of its own.
"Why just last week we founded an organization that brings speakers to impoverished tribes in Africa to talk about their entrepreneurial experiences," said Yip. "I really think the Maasai peoples of Kenya were inspired by Steve Jobs's lecture on how to market new technologies to mass audiences."
However, some critics fear that elementary school students will not be able to truly appreciate the resumé-boosting potential of belonging to a group as prestigious as this at such a young age. As Julia Carson '10 pointed out, "With elementary school students so focused on which colleges they're going to get into these days, it's hard to imagine how any of them would have the time to think about their MBAs as well."
Nonetheless, the future entrepreneurs seem to have embraced the opportunity. Timmy Johnson, VP of Communications and second grader at The Webster Avenue School Chapter of EP'sEP'sSEP said, "I'm weally excited to be a pawt of Bwown's Entwepweneuwship Pwogwam's Entwepweneuwship Pwogwam's Entwepweneuwship Pwogwam. I'm finally able to shawe all of my gweat business pwoposals in a fowum that both fostews my cweativity and dwives me to twy hawdew at the same time." Members of EP'sEPtSEP feel that Johnson will be a wonderful voice for the chapter once he develops the ability to pronounce the letter R.
Other elementary school students in the area have shown similar passion for entrepreneurship and have already begun developing a number of ambitious projects for EP'sEP'sEPs to pursue. Such projects include a World Peace Machine, An End World Poverty Machine, and a Stop Global Warming Machine, all of which aim to solve the evils that afflict our planet by pressing a large red button on an impressive looking silver box and observing as the problems resolve themselves. The students are currently debating how to market such products seeing as only one is necessary per global issue.
As EP'sEPtSEPs President Roland noted, "The kids are especially eager to put out a viable prototype after the failure of the Make Daddy Stop Drinking that Smelly Water Machine." The machine in question seemed to make most fathers even more irritable than usual due to numerous incidents of fathers tripping over the machines in their living rooms. This led to a dramatic decline in sales immediately following the product's release.
As for the future of EP, Co-President Erika Gruppo '09 seemed fully confident that the Program was on to bigger and better things.
"I think it's safe to say that we're all headed towards a much brighter future thanks to EP'sEPtSEPs. Next semester we're hoping to establish a similar organization for establishing Entrepreneurship Programs in former Soviet Satellites. If all goes according to plan, it wont be long before you see Entrepreneurship Programs on other planets!" Here at Brown, we can hardly wait.
