We start from the fact that the entrepreneur spirit tries to create. We need to explore a new economic development approach in regions, placing people, families, and entrepreneurs at the center.

At this moment of history, while we experience massive changes that shake the foundations of our economy and society, we are forced to watch the community transformation going on as the next economy becomes our future reality. We have the opportunity now to readjust principles and structures that set up our future. But how will our next economy be different from the current one? For the first time in history, each voice can be heard.

People are the new company. More than ever, we align with companies, organizations and even personalities that reflect our values. Companies are forced to switch to people-centered commercialization. We have the opportunity now to readjust principles and structures that set up our future. The next economy cannot spin around wealth wide and often poorly distributed measures. Instead, it must be centered on individual measurements of health (living wages, access to medical attention and to high quality education, and capacity to achieve potential). This transformation will not only require companies’ thinking, but the entrepreneurial spirit itself.

The economic model centered on the short term has no place to prioritize the wellbeing of the community beyond the minimal regulated demands. The result was a company environment more and more extractive and exploitative that had a negative long-lasting impact on employees, customers, communities, and the environment. Fortunately, each day more and more entrepreneurs are working to build the next economy. Today’s visionary entrepreneurs want to build companies with holistic perspectives that help people to meet their potential. They are creating companies that acknowledge the contributions of the human beings that are the real engines of all successful enterprises and communities. They are working to build models based on life and not on exploitation of workers.

This desire to transform lives and communities is a consistent topic heard from entrepreneurs all over the country. The desire to be a community transformation agent motivates many of the modern entrepreneurs to leave aside the security of a life, of a normal job, and instead, to participate in a creation act. The desire to create entrepreneurships that define the next economy is already here. The employees’ potential that economic promotors seek to bring, does not nor cannot depend on attraction campaigns funded by expensive public incentives that divert resources from other community priorities. Instead, the creation of jobs in the next economy rests on the hearts and ambitions of the local entrepreneurs that bet on their community and build that future today, not expecting a permission or an incentive package to keep forward. The future of our society depends on how we react to entrepreneurs that long for their voices to be heard, known and important. Our old economy ignored these voices. Now we have the opportunity to do things differently. Will we support and strengthen the entrepreneurs that work to transform their communities, creating companies that recognize the individual voices and values? Let’s do all we can to support these entrepreneurs to be successful, and together we will built our next economy.

Translated by I2T2