Jonathan Ortmans is the National Executive Director of EntrepreneurshipWeek USA, an annual challenge event launched by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the New York Times and Inc. magazine to engage students in hundreds of schools and universities around the globe to explore their potential as self-starters and entrepreneurs.

Ortmans stresses the value of entrepreneurs to the US and world economy, citing that entrepreneurs in particular embody the pioneering spirit of the early US settlers. The entrepreneurial life is a reflection of the self-made legacy of great American heroes like Ben Franklin, for one.

And living an entrepreneurial life doesn’t even necessarily mean starting a private business. Entrepreneurs are people who start companies, non-profit organizations, associations, and even social ventures that seek to raise social capital before monetary capital. To take Franklin as an example, he not only was a successful Pennsylvania businessman, inventor, and diplomat, but he published the famous Poor Richard’s Almanac and the Pennsylvania Gazette for many years; he organized a group of aspiring young men from diverse occupations to meet weekly and discuss politics, philosophy, ethics, and business affairs (called the Junto); he founded the American Philosophical Society; he helped charter the first hospital in the States; and along with friends from his social club he formed both the first public lending library and fire department in America!

An entrepreneurial career definitely highlights the difference between merely taking a job that someone else creates…and making a job for yourself and for others!