NFTE’s Global Entrepreneurship Week in East LA

LOS ANGELES, CA – Friday, November 21, 2008
by Orly Douek

As part of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship’s Global Entrepreneurship Week, Rami Rivera Frankl, the president and founder of Hobokenwest Digital Media was invited to speak to students at Downey High School’s Business Education and Finance courses. As a business entrepreneur and urban activist, Mr. Rivera Frankl was excited to share his challenging personal story and the journey of creating the first Latino owned DVD mastering company to produce product for the major film studios. His talks got the attention of the mostly Latino/Hispanic students now creating their own business plan for their trial small businesses.

Rather than solely focusing on his story, Rivera Frankl asked students to share their dreams and goals. His laid back discussion of his his own challenges made the students feel at ease to ask questions. Rivera Frankl shared his personal history and created a context for dialogue. A reoccurring theme in Rivera Frankl’s talks was “that which you are most ashamed of, can become your greatest asset and power.”

They also discussed goal setting and aligning one’s actions with one’s goals. Rivera Frankl shared that he has fallen in love with failure. “Setbacks,” he said, “are a learning experience that help you get closer to your goals. You have to align your actions with your goals and then you learn through doing.”

After the last class, I sat down to review the student evaluations.The students left class feeling empowered to create those goals for themselves and to start taking the everyday steps toward their dreams. In Rivera Frankl’s talks he mentioned that if he could take his childhood traumas and use them to connect and help someone then his work would be done. If the evaluations were any indication, then indeed his work was done this day.