Sunday, December 28, 2014

The "Meat" of the Matter: For-Profit Peace Corps and Unmet Needs


by Dr. Ellen Brandt


As related previously, the Bring Back the Meritocracy! project's first priority for 2015 is getting the eight Ivies - followed by the rest of the top-tier university community - to set up plans for salvaging the economic fortunes of their own financially-at-risk graduates and alumni, many of whom are over age 40 and all of whom belong to the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" population.

As an adjunct to this part of the project, we hope we can find a permanent office for Bring Back the Meritocracy! on one of the eight Ivy campuses or as part of an All-Ivy office focused on financially-at-risk alums, possibly either in New York or Washington, D.C.

Our second big priority for 2015 is launching the first of what may eventually become several "new-old-style" venture capital funds focused on experienced and highly-educated entrepreneurs over the age of 40, working across a broad spectrum of business sectors and industries.

We will launch these venture funds in conjunction with respected and experienced venture capital groups - likely headed by or with principals who are themselves over age 40 - or 60 - or 80. And we will base the funds created within the offices of these venture capital groups, with Bring Back the Meritocracy! providing assistance, administration, publicity, and - one believes - a steady stream of competent, highly-educated, highly-experienced founders and early-stage entrepreneurs who hope to get funded.


The "Meat" of the Project


Exciting as the above endeavors should prove to be, they are admittedly not the "meat" of the Bring Back the Meritocracy! project in a long-term sense.

That "meat" - the overall project's main focus for what we hope will be literally decades to come - is two-fold: 1) encouraging and helping to initiate long-term research projects studying the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" in the United States and abroad and 2) applying that research by getting the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" population - estimated to number at least 400 million individuals worldwide - back to working at their full intellectual and creative capacity, thereby helping not only themselves, their communities, and their countries, but the entire world economy as well.

The long-term research component of Bring Back the Meritocracy! will be aimed at persuading distinguished researchers at universities, foundations, think tanks, corporations, international organizations, and media groups to start doing the studies we believe now urgently need to be done and assisting these researchers in every possible way.

The job creation portion of Bring Back the Meritocracy! will focus on launching various "For-Profit Peace Corps"-like entities, aimed at matching the current extremely large Talent Pool of the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" with "Unmet Need" development projects in the U.S. and abroad - crucially-needed development projects in manufacturing, infrastructure, education, healthcare, and social services.

Clearly, both of these long-term aims are complicated and difficult to achieve, requiring the support and assistance of a wide range of groups and constituencies.

We will take the first steps on this long and significant journey in 2015.


Now that we've outlined our Agenda for the coming year,  we once again urge readers who like what we're doing to send copies of the three-part Agenda blog sequence to others in their networks they believe should know about Bring Back the Meritocracy! and its positive implications for top-tier universities, higher education, venture capital, job creation, and international development.

We promise to give readers frequent updates on our progress over the coming months.

The next blog in this series will talk about the relationship between Meritocracy and Political Centrism, placing the core democratic value of Meritocracy within the context of our political life and the concept and collective vision of the American Dream.


Agenda 2015, Part One: All We Want For Christmas - and Chanukah, Kwanzaa, and Winter Solstice: The Meritocracy Agenda, Part One:

http://destituteivyleaguer.blogspot.com/2014/12/all-we-want-for-christmas-and-chanukah.html

Agenda 2015, Part Two: Venture Capital Looks Backwards - and Forward: Time to Fund the Mature and Highly-Educated Once More:

http://destituteivyleaguer.blogspot.com/2014/12/venture-capital-looks-backwards-and.html




Read about and consider joining with us in the Bring Back the Meritocracy! project, a non-profit, non-monetized, non-partisan, and non-controversial long-term project helping the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" in the U.S. and abroad.