In this morning's New York Times, columnist Thomas Friedman calls on President Obama to place Mary Mazzio's remarkable new film, Ten9Eight, in every classroom in the country:
The president should also vow to bring the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, or NFTE, to every low-income neighborhood in America. NFTE works with middle- and high-school teachers to help them teach entrepreneurship. The centerpiece of its program is a national contest for start-ups with 24,000 kids participating. Each student has to invent a product or service, write up a business plan and then do it. NFTE (www.NFTE.com) works only in low-income areas, so many of these new entrepreneurs are minority kids.In November, a documentary movie -- "Ten9Eight" -- was released that tracked a dozen students all the way through to the finals of the NFTE competition. Obama should arrange for this movie to be shown in every classroom in America. It is the most inspirational, heartwarming film you will ever see. You can obtain details about it at www.ten9eight.com.
This year's three finalists, said Amy Rosen, the chief executive of NFTE, "were an immigrant's son who took a class from H&R Block and invented a company to do tax returns for high school students, a young woman who taught herself how to sew and designed custom-made dresses, and the winner was an African-American boy who manufactured socially meaningful T-shirts."
This film, Friedman argues, can be a cornerstone of an urgently needed effort to inspire innovation within our culture--and to generate the jobs that come with it. "You want more good jobs, spawn more Steve Jobs," says Friedman. "Obama should have focused on that from Day 1. He must focus on that for Year 2."
Watch the trailer above, and find out about screenings the the upcoming BET broadcast at Ten9Eight.com.