Our solutions will arrive not only when we attempt to imagine a different perspective for our entrepreneurial research, energy, and outcomes, but when we also find the conviction that these changes are essential and necessary for our continued evolution.

Challenging us to “re-think” everything, Norris Krueger spent time with us on Thursday afternoon instead of his usual time spent generating the next best entrepreneurial theory. Sitting in the “hot seat,” Krueger is considered the Nikola Tesla of entrepreneurship research today. His presentation demanded that we re-think our mindsets, ecosystems, and methods, in addition to re-thinking why we are necessitating this re-think. Our solutions will arrive not only when we attempt to imagine a different perspective for our entrepreneurial research, energy, and outcomes, but when we also find the conviction that these changes are essential and necessary for our continued evolution.

Dictated as the “Great Re-think,” we understand that this is a critical time to concurrently assess the intersections of the macro and micro in the way they align with “entrepreneurial potential and potential entrepreneurs” and reshape our understanding of the notion of “entrepreneur” as a verb in its true action-oriented state. The journey through re-thinking our mindset in teaching and training, in addition to an assessment of theoretical practices, helps us to recognize the need to create participatory opportunities for theories within the entrepreneurial setting. Following, re-thinking ecosystems must involve the discussion between top-down and bottom-up thinking. Looking to build programs and ecosystems that matter would seem logical, however within the gap between academia and reality, this notion often gets lost. Wanting to recover a lost storytelling program, Krueger spoke about building a hub from which we might promote an accurate and thorough narrative for small business and entrepreneurship worldwide. Lastly, looking to re-think models, Krueger spoke about using appropriate models that allow us to reframe our theories and practice appropriately.

This “Great Re-think” leads us to move beyond thinking to entirely reimagine and recreate universities. In reviewing the teachings of the coronavirus, not only is there an opportunity for universities to change fundamentally, either closing for the weaker universities or becoming more robust and bigger entities for those who can quickly adapt to the new normal; however, there is also the evolution of the professor. It will be derived from this transition in the position of the professor that, then, will create new accessible and more inclusive programs for students, bridging the exclusivity gaps resulting from institutional competition and prestige as well as unspoken priority in accessing innovative and desirable opportunities to learn for younger scholars.

Centering this shift around the professors, we might be able to capture their higher mandate, which guides them to educate as many students as they can. We could demonstrate that the professor holds the potential to behold a following comparable to that of a well-known celebrity. This celebrity status is not meant to generate attention for attention’s sake, but further to create the necessary conditions so that, similar to famous athletes and movie stars, the impact of a professor’s ideas, ideologies, and teachings could impact more students and greater networks. The notion is that professors have an incredible reach in obtaining information. However, they are often blocked in expanding that reach for their finished product. By using this sense of “popularity,” for social good, we can potentially attract the public’s attention by placing the ideas and stances of entrepreneurial professors next to the publications of celebrities like Elon Musk and Bill Gates. We are done with the stale insights from repeated voices, and we are ready to advance towards the future. There are already professors, Norris Krueger, for example, who have a following and are supported by the global organization, like Krueger is by ICSB. Therefore, in creating the opportunity for professors around the world, we can create a real knowledge revolution that works towards inclusion rather than division. This new professor will no longer belong to a school, but rather to him or herself and their followers.

Recognizing that not every student has the opportunity to attend an Ivy League program or travel across the world to participate in a conference, we might be able to seize this technological revolution to expand teaching capabilities to parts of the world where it never previously existed. If we can detach the professor from their established university, we can create a “sharing” program, which seeks to captivate students from multiple schools, programs, and institutions to work together to fund a course. Therefore, instead of one university paying to invite a guest lecturer or various guest lecturers for the semester to teach 100 students in one location, professors can gather the best and most innovative minds to instruct a week-long class. Students attending would be sent by their universities who wish to later reproduce the knowledge and cohesion of the event. Therefore, students would be able to return to their universities to share what they had learned. If the first-class worked with 30 students, then those students would be able to have individual connections with the course’s professors and instructors, which they could share when returning to their universities to connect with another set of students. Additionally, the information from this sort of class, which would typically be unavailable to many students throughout the world, could be captured on a technological platform to be shared with those who do not have the institutional finances to send their students to the course.

The focus of this type of program is twofold. Firstly, it would increase visibility around the higher mandate that professors feel, while moving away from the prestige, power, and rigor of an institution and its constant publication demands. Secondly, within entrepreneurship and learning centers, it could make available the essential understanding and empathy, which is often quite removed from traditional seminar settings. The deep engagement that could potentially arrive from these transitions, away from conventional and established university patterns, would finally make equitable changes in academia. In building a network through action and engagement rather than publication, we might genuinely be able to generate and produce something valuable from our “Great Re-think.”

We need to ensure that the entrepreneurial base grows and that the jobs become more diverse.

In acknowledging the global changes due to the unforeseen events over the past few months, Prince Constantijn van Oranje spoke about the societal and economic shifts that have taken place resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Having been personally and professionally affected, Prince Constantijn holds the unique perspective in seeing both the positive outcomes and painful truths that these past few months have revealed. In responding to the onset of the lockdown and the COVID-19 pandemic, Prince Constantijn and his team immediately saw the need to “pivot” their strategy. Upon the crisis’ onset, they surveyed the startup ecosystem to be able to see clearly and more fully understand the ecosystem’s needs and its views of the perceived economic and financial impact that the pandemic and shut down would likely produce. Thanks to this work, Prince Constantijn and his team were then in a “position to negotiate a loan package with the government for the startup community.” This was an incredible move-in protecting the Netherlands ecosystem as startups are not typically included in government aid packages. Additionally, on an organizational level, the external stressors over the past few months have been a loud and sounding wake up call to “refocus our organizations.”

In recognizing that a change or shift in one city or region can have a butterfly effect and result in significant changes in a completely different place, we need to realize our true globalized and interconnected nature. Prince Constantijn was asked, as a leader of the tech industry, and Tech Leap.NL, specifically, what had initially attracted him to this industry. In his response, Prince Constantijn admitted that scale-up is most likely the toughest part of the business. To be continually fighting and forever entering into new spaces, building a scale-up was, personally, not for him. However, he has found his place working with people that do have this enthusiasm and passion for working to improve the world. He finds it incredibly stimulating to be working with so many who embody a “can do” and, further, will do attitude.

In leading this sector, however, Prince Constantijn van Oranje has seen incredible success as the Netherlands continues to be one of the fastest-growing startup hubs in Europe. More specifically, Winslow Sargeant provided some data to portray the Netherlands’ success, recalling that they are the “#1 developer of capital in Europe, #4 best country for business, and #1 best-connected economy in the world.” When asked to share his best practices or those that he has seen, Prince Constantijn described that the success born out of the Netherlands is thanks to the well-established and built ecosystem in the Netherlands, which has high levels of healthcare, education, widespread bilingualism, higher education, and necessary infrastructure. Besides the work that by the government, the culture amongst Dutch people leads to the constant questioning of authority, which assists in creating a culture of innovation. This, coupled with the number of multilevel international organizations in the Netherlands, the nation began in an excellent position. Being a smaller country with universal broadband capabilities, the Netherlands’ real secret is that the essential “innovation is in the people.” We have seen this exemplified by the way that societies have integrated the technology to change healthcare, education, and work practices because now there is a significant pressure to make these transitions happen.

If innovation truly does originate in the person, and most trends point to its accuracy, then we need to question, “Do startups need governments.” The answer may have changed from before COVID-19 to now. However, we can see that the government does indeed have a role to play. We saw how the virus disproportionately affected those who were already in a vulnerable and disadvantaged state. COVID-19 has shown us that the government has an important role to play in a crisis. Governments work as a type of last resort lender, who must provide specific schemes to ensure that people are paid. However, there is a precise balance to strike in that the government needs to be proactive, while not being too restrictive, to enhance the opportunity for new solutions, founded in a flexible system. Governments, additionally, can have a mindset of innovation and entrepreneurship, which will motivate them to invest in education, research, and innovative development.

If governments genuinely begin investing in funding and encouraging entrepreneurs, we need to think about how this will change national ecosystems, and then, in turn, how it might affect our preconceived ideas or beliefs about globalization. As the movement towards resilient supply chains and autonomy takes form, no one seems to be sure of how this will translate into a globalized system. However, we are confident that companies need to build alternatives to their complex supply chains, which fail in the face of disruption. Even governments that are used to outsourcing all their manufacturing have been unable to access critical equipment. Prince Constantijn points out that we have all become “more aware that the optimization of supply chains has its risks,” therefore, in the future we might see more strategic moves as companies weigh efficiency over the robustness of supply chains.

Resulting from these disruptions, however, individual companies and industries were able to demonstrate incredible resiliency as they pulled together and shifted to produce what was most necessary for society, which not surprisingly equated with what was most essential for humanity. It is entrepreneurship that lives at the heart of these trends of adaptability and innovation. Today, anyone can engage with entrepreneurship. As we see, technology hubs spread throughout the world; startups are popping up in places that have been typically excluded from substantial monetary gains, quality job creation, and decision-making processes in the past. However, now, people can create a business with a simple connection to the internet, which is changing everything.

This movement towards investment in entrepreneurship must come with an investment towards expanding the invitation of those who are typically working within the tech sector. Currently, the tech world is very white and male, therefore, now that more people can engage with this sector, we must be sure to generate the conditions so that the non-white and non-male identities can feel empowered to unleash their potential within this sector. Governments can play an additional role in opening up this conversation and establishing a culture of acceptance, invitation, and equitable policy. Prince Constantijn reflected on these questions asking, “How do we make the tech ecosystem more diverse?” and “Why do certain groups not feel empowered to be entrepreneurs?” Noting the apparent bias also amongst investors, Prince Constantijn continues to ask, “How do we ensure that the entrepreneurial base grows and that the jobs become more diverse?” Betting on diversity “as a force for good,” we can see clearly that our customer base is more diverse, so why not look to represent that diversity, in talent, skill, background, and orientation.

For Prince Constantijn van Oranje, the logic is simple: we must integrate entrepreneurship into our culture. In demystifying the tech sector, we can start to change people’s perceptions to see the opportunity and possible gains that entrepreneurship presents instead of solely the risks. In destigmatizing failure, we might be able to create a vibrant ecosystem, or “set of interrelated actors providing tech, money, talent, and market entry.” As COVID-19 worked as an “incredible triage,” businesses worldwide are deciding whether they want to stay at their size or make a leap forward. For many, that will involve entering the online market, which presents many possibilities. Unfortunately for companies that are not willing to continue forward, many will not survive.

In his closing remarks, Prince Constantijn van Oranje states that “the only thing you know is that you have full uncertainty, that’s your certainty.” In moving forward, hope is not the solution, but rather it is a mental guide that helps us move forward. In thinking about the approaching MSMEs Day, we can see the wonderful organizations and businesses that have come out of crises, the United Nations presenting as a great example. In his final words, Prince Constantjin reminds us that there will always be people who stand up to make a change, and right now, that change-maker could be anyone.

Thank you, Prince Constantijn van Oranje for your incredible presentation and sharing your time with us. For those interested in watching the full video, check it out below. We look forward to continuing this discussion at the MSMEs Day 2020 June 25th Celebration and June 27th Day of Action.

We are living through a revolution towards cohesion.

As protesters line the streets of every major city, I can not help but hear the cry for a just and green economy. All over the world, people are looking at the old and stagnant economic system of the past and recognizing the absence of its place in this new normal. This new normal, instead, invites an economy generated by and for the people, and I see humane entrepreneurs as the leaders of this movement.

We are living through a revolution towards cohesion. If we want to set the groundwork for circular systems of growth that uplift the humanity in each individual involved while working to protect the planet, then we might just create a world in which representation, equity, and empathy come naturally to leaders and followers alike. Currently, we are in the preliminary stages of change.

The collective world population is waking up to realize that the injustices that established nations can not go unnoticed and unrepaired. If we think for a moment as if a nation was an enterprise and, further, an entrepreneurial enterprise, what rating of Humane Entrepreneurship would the nation receive? If a country (any country) was an enterprise, would it present IDEAL, MODERATE, NEGATIVE, or HARMFUL Humane Entrepreneurship?

Seeing how the leadership and top managers have established cycles of harm that consider the financial profitability of the company over the well-being, enablement, and empowerment of their employees, it would seem that a country can also demonstrate systems of HARMFUL Humane Entrepreneurship. Typically improvements can not be created in or from a HARMFUL enterprise. Therefore, this points to foundational reforms, or the possible shut down of the company, so that it can rebegin from a healthier, more virtuous start. Within the transition from destroying to recreate, we might seek the HumEnt principles of empathy and equity as our guides to ensuring that the new company created does not repeat the same vicious cycles of the past.

We must emphasize that within every structure of society, and therefore including business, “respect for human dignity demands respect for human freedom.” The theory and practice of Humane Entrepreneurship are built around the notion that human capital, and the humanistic aspect, which is part of all of us, has been directly and indirectly forgotten within our societal practices. We seem to have simply omitted the value of each and every individual human, and instead replaced this value with that of economics. Therefore, we have accidentally turned economics into a destroying force for humane endeavors. However, seen over the past years, and represented mainly by micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, entrepreneurs have refound themselves and their ability to uplift both financial and social capital simultaneously. Coupled with the incredible movement happening around the world today, the world might be able to create enough synergy to start anew.

Within this restart, we can then imagine what we might want to include. Understanding the characteristics of humanistic management, empathy is an essential “driving factor for employee engagement and communicative business culture, leading to a better understanding between organizational members and stakeholders.” Let us, for a moment, reverse the experiment above, now magnifying a business to a nation. If within an enterprise, empathy can significantly enhance engagement and communicative culture, imagine the incredible changes that could arrive on the greater scale of a nation, if and when we all decided to value empathy towards ourselves and one another. As empathy is often thought of as the “starting point of design thinking,” it seems perfectly reasonable that this would be a guiding principle in reimagining and reshaping our new nation.

From empathy, comes a movement towards equity. At the firm-level, equity encompasses the “extent to which a company treats individuals in a fair and equal manner.” This essential component to the work and world culture promotes “a sense of proportion,” agreeing that “the outcomes individuals receive should be awarded in proportion to their inputs and outputs” and understanding that not all individuals are starting in the same place because of embedded covert discrimination. In forming companies and nations that work for equitable solutions, we agree to unearth the past that has created these inequalities and the present that continues to recreate them.

Leaders that manifest the principles of Humane Entrepreneurship will undoubtedly feel more guided than others when system shattering moments come about. Humane Entrepreneurs can quickly adapt to the changes by recognizing their role in searching and working towards a more significant upliftment of the humane aspect of life. It is leaders, such as these, who can understand the opportunities in differences and similarities that will and will continue to build a world made for everyone, one flowing virtuously, greeting growth for all.

We are living through a revolution towards cohesion.

Family firms tend to present a deep sense of responsibility for their communities.

Following the full day at the first Virtual Family Business Research and Practice Conference this past week, I have reflected much as to how many family businesses model the key principles found in Humane Entrepreneurship. Borne out of passion and motivated by togetherness, family businesses present quite correctly the ideal of beginning a business in a “virtuous and sustainable integration of Entrepreneurship, Leadership, and HRM, in which successful implementation leads to a beneficial increase in wealth and quality job creation, perpetuated in a continuous cycle.” Humane entrepreneurship centers around the people of business and expects profitability through those people.

The critical elements of investing in the enterprise’s human capital include “participation and empowerment, employee ownership, training and skills development, cross-utilization and cross-training, employment security, selective recruiting, high wages, and information sharing.” Family firms’ ability to invest primarily in their employees has led to short and long-term recovery after moments of crisis. For example, during the 2008 economic crisis, family-run enterprises survived “by sacrificing profitability to preserve employment.” This perfectly imagines our ideal that in valuing both social and financial capital, businesses are given a more significant opportunity to succeed than for those that focus solely on financial capital.

This, additionally, demonstrates the resilience of family businesses. Their history of surviving and overcoming hardships exemplifies the manner of keeping their well-being at the center of this durability. This multifaceted concept is, at its root, the ability to adapt. A family’s potential to modify or change their behaviors depends on the family culture and ambiance. A family, itself is not the company. However, it does very much determine the organization of management and governance for the enterprise. A family embedded in commitment and trust will magnify a family’s strengths and weaknesses. Families who are healthy and humanely oriented will become very strong, and their HumEnt will excel. However, those that are already containing fusions will separate further.

Change is always a risk to the type determined business structure. Therefore families must use multiple strategies to realign themselves in a potential “new normal.” It is sure that in this moment of hyper-chaos, many enterprises will fail. However, it is more common to see the way that the entrepreneurial spirit continues in some form or another, potentially in the creation of a new family business. Each family’s legacy will continue to help them see who they are and what defines them as a cohesive collective. This nature of “togetherness” ties family businesses easily with Humane Entrepreneurship, meaning that other non-family firms can look to the guidance of family businesses’ human-centered approach as a model with which to align themselves.

Women-owned family businesses are seen to, generally, do better than family businesses directed by men. There is a direct correlation between promoting the visibility of women (i.e., equitable work — a foundation of HumEnt) and supporting family businesses. On the other hand, one way that family firms vary from the principles of HumEnt is in their decisions to rarely seek external advice and their high propensity towards nepotism. A family business can improve by possibly extending communications with outside-of-the-family actors.

Yet still, family firms tend to present a deep sense of responsibility for their communities. They typically focus on cash preservation, employee safety, and community health, thus exemplifying their combination of human and financial capital as a solution for enterprises worldwide. In a time of crisis such as that of the COVID-19 pandemic, we might expect to see most family businesses fail; however, we are surprised to see the opposite trends. This crisis is demonstrating the power of internal strength and optimism in uncertain times like these. The particular elements of a family firm’s success also align clearly with the rational principles of Humane Entrepreneurship. It is time for these successful principles to move beyond family businesses, as these principles might be your enterprise’s saving grace during these unparalleled times.

Consumers are starting to recognize the value of being able to expend their resources while concurrently awakening to the troubles that small businesses globally face.

As the world retreats inward, both business practices and consumer habits have significantly shifted. Consumers are starting to recognize the value of being able to expend their resources while concurrently awakening to the troubles that small businesses globally face. As for businesses, many have also reflected on their values and practices, deciding where to make cuts and how to demonstrate employee-value at this moment. At large, we have all been influenced by this global reset.

This re-establishment places many in the space of simultaneous suffering and structuring. This is where the principles of humane entrepreneurship can be applied in practice. Detailed in their original publication, humane enterprises share four categorizations for business, those being ideal, moderate, negative, and harmful. Working as types of standards for the business community, these qualify businesses not only in their transition towards just practices but more so in their ability to apply these grades of practice as individuals and through cultural business diffusion.

The Ideal Humane Entrepreneurship can be found in companies where their top management and administration embody the cultural values of empathy, equity, empowerment, and enablement for their employees. As the leadership guides appropriately and humanely, a culture of these values will help generate innovation, appropriate risk-taking, and decisive actions that produce activities creating quality job creation and company wealth, which helps continue the cycle of these qualities. Although these qualifiers need markers to measure these standards, companies, themselves, might begin to create evaluation and assessment phases to calculate their own business’s standard of Humane Entrepreneurship. Additionally, national leaders can use these principles as they reconsider current policies surrounding enterprises, aiding in the need to bring a Culture of Ideal Humane Entrepreneurship to the forefront of both consumers’ and producers’ understanding of their role in entrepreneurship.

Moderate Humane Entrepreneurship can be portrayed in companies where leadership is committed to one aspect of generating a Culture of Humane Entrepreneurship. This will inevitably lead to an imbalance between managing the human and strategy within the organization. Resulting in varied outcomes for wealth and job creation, this cycle will, unfortunately, not continue the cycle of positive performance seen in the Ideal standard.

Negative Humane Entrepreneurship is depicted, regrettably, in many companies worldwide, where the organization’s leadership forgets the importance of the “human” component to entrepreneurial orientation. This will thus create dissatisfaction for employees, which will disempower high-level performance, innovation, and certainly risk-taking. This sterile ecosystem will cause depletion and discontinuation of wealth cycles. There remains the possibility for an organization of this Negative nature to recover the humane element of the business.

Lastly, Harmful Humane Entrepreneurship is seen in leadership who are purposely and directly harming their employees and, thus, the capital. The Culture of Humane Entrepreneurship is not at all visible in this environment, leading to a decline in performance and wealth, which is often impossible to resolve to look forward.

Humane Entrepreneurship necessitates that companies either transition immediately or begin their business plan based on a humane orientation to entrepreneurship, which will allow leadership and staff to understand their value while working as a cohesive team. This company will demonstrate their belief that “respect for human dignity demands respect for human freedom,” thus leveraging their company to further the ideals of empathy and equity beyond the walls of their business to broadcast this Cultural value to and for the greater world.

Collective Culture Born Out of Individual Isolation

After months of shelter-in-place orders as well as even more extended periods of social distancing, the rhetoric surrounding the next steps is widespread. However, the conversations reimagining what our new normal might resemble has transformed from sterile and secluded into collective and social. Potentially borne out of the human spirit’s contrarian nature or, instead, our perspective-shifting solitude, it seems that this natural revolution, or COVID-19, has engaged us in finally seeing the importance of togetherness.

The previous barriers that were so meticulously placed to keep thick walls between the “haves” and “have nots” have metaphorically fallen. With nature as our great equalizer, we are stuck in this natural disaster. However, we have a choice. Do we want to spend all of our resources on rebuilding those walls, making our societies at large vulnerable to future disasters, or can we take this moment and recognize that those barriers need not exist in our world nor our minds. It seems ridiculous that a global pandemic was necessary to shake us out of our hierarchical worldview and realize that this is the moment to break down and reset.
This crisis has wholly changed our ideal present, and its legacy will continue to seep into generational changes in the future. Generation Corona. A group of entrepreneurs who will never look at sanitary mishaps or the absence of safety funds the same way. The next generations of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) have been borne into a world in which expectations have no place. For those businesses that will live to see the other side of this pandemic as well as those that will launch following this intense and immediate form of social distancing, nothing currently exhibits normalcy, nor will it in the future.

In examining the 2020 world and future, we must release the mental hold on hazards and challenges, and look instead to growth and prosperity. MSMEs are recognized globally for their contributions to innovation and improvements in economic conditions. Last year, MSMEs most challenging challenge that inhibited their growth was lack of belief. The belief that a person can create something substantial and of importance to economic and social value must be deep to ensure real success. Entrepreneurship’s global trends have steered away from being solely a domain for the rich, well-connected, and gender-specific for years now, and this crisis will only push this trend forward more quickly. This global shock holds the potential to either promote the women, youth, families, and disabled who have transformed their communities and further societies or delay the necessary work of these underrepresented voices. Therefore, both entrepreneurs and their surrounding communities must work to foster the power of belief as a way to energize economies and improve economic situations. In continuing to actively encourage the creation and sustainability of MSMEs, not just the launch of a business, but also its maintenance of an adaptable and vibrant economic ecosystem, the results will involve meaningful impacts as all of us engage our power of belief in individual potential and the creation and sustainability of MSMEs.

The current pandemic has both halted and advanced much sustainable action. The global pause has led to an incredible lessening in atmospheric carbon. However, it has also exacerbated the current inequity and resulting symptoms of hunger, poverty, sexism, and ableism around the world. As MSMEs make up the very economic fabric of communities, reaching many sustainable development goals without even realizing it, they can be used as a measuring stick for progress in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. MSMEs sit in the unique and vulnerable position to both presents the solutions to the world’s most pressing issues, while also needing an incredible amount of resilience to be able to perform these necessary services. In our time of reflection at home, hopefully, we, as both entrepreneurs and customers, can realign with importance, to create more informed producing and consuming patterns herein out.

In hoping to promote the work of MSMEs and, thus, the advancement of society, we can advocate for balances as the fourth industrial revolution takes life in the new ways that technology interacts with the human body. As this convergence takes place across biological and physical worlds, the working relationships between employees and their employers will most certainly change. Therefore with this paradigm shift, the use of artificial intelligence will potentially eliminate a significant portion of jobs that are currently occupied by humans. Understanding that this shift will completely change the future of work, we must seek equilibrium, meaning that the advent of technology will allow those with creative ideas, people who are not localized to race, class, gender, religion, or region, to restructure the way that people have engaged in work and employment. In this way, we can recenter solving society’s most intractable challenges, while working in tandem with the goals established by the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainability.

Looking to future transitions, our new normal includes the rise to the entrepreneurial city. This global movement, which began in the mid-1990s, spread venture capitalism across the borders of its original home, the United States, and has led to a dramatic rise in global start-up and venture capital activity. If the most innovative and entrepreneurial talents can view their workspace, unconstrained by borders, then America does not have to stand as the only destination for entrepreneurs. This will allow cities to diversify by attracting talent and understanding that capital will follow.

Lastly, it is essential to realize that even before COVID-19, there was a trend to dismantle the status quo. The global pandemic has only enforced this end of normalcy. The current status quo is vulnerable, broken, and unable to provide both strong and weak economies the solutions they need to find profit in their present and future. We can not only think about ways in which disruption and co-working spaces are affecting the economy but instead, we must go further to address human progress and identity. We are currently caught in a battle for acceptance and belonging in this ever-changing society. Let this fight end in peace, the peace necessary for progression and innovation that will allow us to begin building an equitable world.