The irresistible rise of the venturist

From the social entrepreneur improving the literacy rates of young people in a London borough, to the engineer designing new eco-friendly ways of generating energy, Venturists are agents of change that create value for all of us. The task for government, business and wider society is to recognise their rise and do more to unleash their potential.

A lot can change in the space of a decade. Ten years ago the economy was flourishing, social media was still in its infancy, and the banks had "ended" boom and bust. Fast-forward to 2013 and we see a dramatically different world, with high youth unemployment, close to a billion people signed up to Facebook, and the banks facing opprobrium.

Get any group of people charged with creating and supporting start-ups in a room and they will soon tell you that the biggest barrier in the UK is not access to credit or red tape, it is culture. It is the simple and bemusing fact that in the UK, unlike the US or the Far East, enterprise is not taken seriously as a career choice or is regarded as deeply risky.

This short report explores what venturism means, who the new venturists are, where they come from, what they can do to change society and what policy makers can do to help them.