Roots of the word entrepreneurship

Kavita Ramdas, President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, defines entrepreneurship by looking to the roots of the French language. She found two words: "entre" and "prendre" that suggest the act of immersion into something that also takes hold of you. (Taken from Stanford Educators Corner)

I have always liked the past video (not only because I love indian accent!), and even if it was an intervention of 2003. What a better way to start understanding entrepreneurship than analizing the roots of the word itself?

So, even if the roots of the word entrepreneurship (and therefore of the word entrepreneur) come from a romance language, as french is, it´s important to notice that in spanish only few words or terms that we use normally related to entrepreneurship do officialy exist. For example, if you go to the REAL ACADEMIA DE LA LENGUA (the highest authority for the spanish language words writting and definitions), the noun EMPRENDIMIENTO (entrepreneurship, endeavor) is reported as non-existent. But we use it everywhere. However words as EMPRENDEDOR (entrepreneur) and EMPRENDER (verb for entrepreneurship, that actually does not exist in english) exist. And it´s a similar story in portuguese. I personally remember starting using the word entrepreneurship when I was about 19 - 20 years old ...

What is the point I try to make? Isn´t it funny to talk so much about those terms in Latinamerica when the word simply does not exist? Let´s face it, entrepreneurship now is in fashion, and many of us once used the word without even knowing what it really meant! but at the beginning must have been hard to start acting upon a culture which definition and concept was not even familiar to our language. Nevertheless, entrepreneurs, no matter what we called them and since when we started called them like this, have always existed, id oubt our civilizations would have had evolved without them. If not, let´s remember that in France in the beginning of the XVI century the word was also used to refer to the adverturers that traveled to the "New World" looking for life opportunities without knowing what to expect. Not really a big difference with what we today understand, right?

Any other theories or insights about the roots of the word?! Feel free to share!

Hope to come back soon with more capsules about Nature and Definitions of Entrepreneurship.

Welcome to Entrepreneurial Discovery!

Dear readers,

It´s with lots of exitement that I am lauching Entrepreneurial Discovery! Since some months I have been procrastinating launching this blog that is meant to serve as an space to inform, share and discuss about the different aspects of the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Why I am doing this blog? First of all, I enjoy a lot blogging. Since around 3 years I´ve managing my own personal blog, where I touch all kind of topics, many of them about my own life and my adventures, many of them related to general topics I am passionate about. The second motivation to launch Entrepreneurial Discovery is highly related with the fact that always, and specially since the beginning of 2007, I breathe Entrepreneurship everywhere. I´ve been engaged with international programs that fostered Social Entrepreneurship, working with foundations and NGOs. I worked with an India entrepreneurs as a trainee for 6 months. Right now, I work for a global non-profit organization that identifies and supports high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets to facilitate and encourage long-term sustainable growth. On the other side, many of my familiy members, friends and my boyfriend are entrepreneurs. So I feel blessed to be on a professional and personal level engaged with real change makers, from diverse sizes and industries as well with top business people that support those entrepreneurs at different levels.

It´s inspiring. It´s challenging. And it´s a pity that all the knowledge and experiences that I have access to every day gets archived only in my head. That´s why I wanted to give a chance to this blog.

To finish this first post, I just want to share some principles:

1. This blog can be read and nurtured by all kinds of people, you do not have to be an entrepreneur nor an expert on entrepreneurship to participate. The idea is to have a space to learn from each other, around a topic that we all should be passionate or at least interested about.

2. We encourage you to disagree and challenge everything that is written by all blog participants (if it´s the case), however do it constructively and in a respectful manner, trying to understand the points of view of everyone.

3. The official languages of the blog are english and spanish. I´m colombian and I´m not native in english, therefore thinking of my local network, it might happen that some posts will be in spanish. For those cases, I´ll make my best to write at least an abstract in english, if not a full translation. When the blod grows, we can see if the add more languages!

4. The nature and topics of the post are not restricted, however I would love to keep some order and use tags that relate to certain common themes. So far I have:

• Nature and Definitions of Entrepreneurship


• Financing and Investing


• Entrepreneurial cuture and attitude


• Entrepreneurs - role models and case studies


• Entrepreneurship and education


• Entrepreneurship and legislation


• Entrepreneur´s challenges


• Innovation and Creativity


• Youth Entrepreneurship


• Women Entrepreneurship


• News and opportunities for Entrepreneurs

All past areas apply for business as social entrepreneurship.

5. Finally, I am open and looking forward to include people not only as readers, but as writters of the blog. The process for that is simple, if there is an interested person, she or he can let me know, we´ll talk about the motivations to be a writter of the blog and if there is a good fit, we start!

Feel free to subscribe for email update or through RSS, the options are to be found in the right side bar of the blog. WELCOME!

Oriana