In progressive schools and households across the country, teens are being encouraged to find the time, drive and energy to turn their ideas into business plans and real-life businesses. This new tribe of ‘kidpreneurs’ are promoting innovative start-ups and simultaneously learning valuable business and life skills that will enable them to succeed in evolving workplaces of the future – Mini P & Cynthia John The highly contagious Coronavirus aka Covid-19 pandemic — the worst global blight since the Spanish flu pandemic of 1914-18 which claimed an estimated 50 million lives worldwide, including 13.8 million in pre-independence India — has taken a huge toll during the past year since the Coronavirus originated in Wuhan, China last November. An estimated 56 million people have been infected and the virus has caused 1.3 million fatalities worldwide including 132,029 in India which is gradually opening up education institutions, business and industry after the comprehensive national lockdown of March 25. Meanwhile, following the lockdown, the Indian economy is expected to contract by an unprecedented 10.25 percent in fiscal 2020-21. However, even the worst winds and disasters blow some good. Not a few business management gurus believe that the problems and constraints imposed upon industry and business by the national lockdown have stimulated creativity, innovation and new technologies management skills of India Inc. Perhaps even more important, the pandemic has aroused the dormant entrepreneurship skills — suppressed by decades of bureaucratic socialism — of citizens in industry and agriculture. Suddenly, media and particularly television channels have discovered the virtues of free markets. These days television ads are proclaiming the virtues of free enterprise and entrepreneurship. These new winds of liberalisation blowing across the country have prompted the rise of an ever-growing number of unicorn companies (i.e, with $1 billion-plus market capitalisation) promoted by entrepreneurs in their 20s and 30s. Moreover in progressive schools and households across the country, teens are being encouraged to find the time, drive and energy to turn their ideas into business plans and real-life businesses. This new tribe of ‘kidpreneurs’ are promoting innovative start-ups and simultaneously learning valuable business and life skills that will enable them to succeed in evolving marketplaces of the future. A case in point is Bengaluru-based teenager Anish Garg (14), a class IX student of the top-ranked Vidyashilp Academy, Bangalore. In April, Anish and his classmate Haashir Ahmed Shaikh (15) launched their company/website virtudopt.com offering virtual adoption services of household pets during the lockdown. “The prolonged six months-plus Covid-19 pandemic has forced millions of people to work and study from home. I discerned a need for families to adopt online pets and follow their progress on their phones and computers. This idea came to me because my father is in the business of importing and marketing exotic pets such as iguanas, macaws and diamond doves on our farm on the outskirts of Bengaluru. It occurred to me that families would love to adopt pets online without the bother of caring for them personally. Under our programme, families or…
