Academy works to create successful entrepreneurs

Stephen Gibson has succeeded in business — or, rather, in many businesses. He has lectured on entrepreneurship and written newspaper columns focused on educating budding entrepreneurs.

And now, Gibson and his wife, Bette, are channeling their entrepreneurial energies in a dynamic new direction: creating successful entrepreneurs in the world's poorest nations.

The Gibsons' Academy for Creating Enterprise started in the Philippines in 1999 with the goal of nurturing new businesses in the country. To get a proper handle on what would work best for the academy, the Gibsons lived in the Philippines for nearly two years.

Unlike other, similar organizations, the academy always has been run entrepreneurially, with feedback from the program's more than 1,400 graduates providing continual ideas for improvement. The academy offers an eight-week course in which students learn to choose, start and run a small business through multiple learning methods: games and competitions, lectures, role playing and helping to run existing businesses.

To ensure its continued success and relevance, the academy now is run by Filipinos and has evolved to include a one-week "quick-start" training program and a pilot expansion program in Mexico City.

In addition, the academy's microenterprise training curriculum, the five-volume "Where There Are No Jobs," is used not only at the Gibsons' facilities but also by other, similar programs throughout the developing world, as the Gibsons continue their quest to spread entrepreneurship — and prosperity — as far as they can.