The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Business mentor’s call for creative thinking
ENTREPRENEURSHIP: Warning many of today’s jobs will be obsolete in 10 years
Scotland needs people in every branch of society to be entrepreneurial to succeed as a modern economy, one of Dundee’s most successful entrepreneurs declared.
Chris van der Kuyl, co-founder of Minecraft developer 4J Studios, said Scotland can become the most entrepreneurial society in the world.
The objective is the aim of Entrepreneurial Scotland, the organisation he chairs to provide opportunities for ambitious individuals to develop their leadership skills.
With a population of only five million people Scotland is not the biggest country in the world, he told a gathering of Dundee Rotary Club.
“We as a country will need to find other ways to achieve that target, and that is for us all to be more entrepreneurial,” he said.
“That doesn’t just involve business people, it means civil servants, teachers and people in all other walks of life to be more creative and innovate in their thinking.”
Returning to the theme later in his address, he told the meeting in the Invercarse Hotel: “We need people with fresh ideas in all sorts of jobs so that these roles can be done better.
“We should encourage people to spread their skills around different jobs and professions for spells rather than for people to stick to the same job all their lives.
“I think our education system would be better if people from industry would go into teaching for say five years to inspire our pupils and students and then move back to industry or into other posts.
“The same should happen with teachers going into industry to refresh their ideas about that sector rather than staying as teachers all their days and going stale.
“It’s far better for jobs to be done by innovative people with fresh ideas rather than by people who struggle to be bothered to get out of bed in the morning.”
Mr van der Kuyl predicted that many jobs will become obsolete in as little as 10 years, such is the rapid advance in technology.
“Autonomous driving – driverless vehicles – could be with us on a wide scale in 10 years because it is safer, cheaper and quicker,” he said.
“That will annihilate driving jobs which are a major part of employment today.
“For the sake of our economy, we will need to replace the jobs that become obsolete and the way to do that is to be innovative and entrepreneurial in the way we think and act now.”