One of the most important things BizWorld teaches young people is not a business framework or a pitch structure. It is independent thinking – the ability to question, challenge, and reason through problems on their own terms. According to Roick Feng, founder of Hohoka and BizWorld’s new Taiwan partnership, independent thinking is also the skill that most school systems are failing to build.

“They are masters at answering other people’s questions,” he said of Taiwan’s students, “but not at solving their own problems.”

That gap between academic performance and real-world capability, sits at the centre of what BizWorld’s entrepreneurship education is designed to close.

Feeling the Problem Before Solving It

Most education systems teach students to process problems that have already been defined for them. The question is on the paper. The method is in the textbook. The answer exists somewhere, and the task is to find it.

BizWorld’s approach starts somewhere else entirely.

“Through entrepreneurship, you can feel other people’s pain points and find the solution,” said Roick.

Before a young person can pursue any venture truly worth building, they have to first develop the capacity to notice what is wrong, to sit with a problem long enough to understand it from someone else’s perspective.

That is empathy as a practical skill. And it is one of the things a 2025 global analysis of project-based learning research, mapping over 2,200 peer-reviewed studies over a decade period, points to consistently as a differentiator between students who can perform academically and students who can actually create something.

Why Independent Thinking Is the Real Outcome

The deeper skill being built through BizWorld’s entrepreneurship curriculum is the power of independence of thought. The ability to receive information and to interrogate it, before accepting it.

“Challenging all the ideas and challenging all the impossibilities or the pain points you’re facing; that’s exactly what the entrepreneurship program wants to bring you,” Roick says. “And that’s why you learn to think independently.”

It is also the exact skill that protects people from being misled. In a world where information – real and fabricated – arrives faster than it can be verified, the person who pauses to ask “is this actually true?” has a significant advantage over the person who was only ever taught to absorb and repeat.

BizWorld builds that pause. It builds the instinct to ask why, to stress-test assumptions, and to reach conclusions through your own reasoning rather than someone else’s.

The Skills That Are Uniquely Human

What makes this urgent right now is not just the school system, it is everything outside of it.

“AI can replace knowledge, but it cannot replace entrepreneurship,” Roick says. “Skills like human empathy, making tough calls in deep ambiguity, and having grit to bounce back from failures; they’re very uniquely human. So if we don’t teach this now, we’re failing our kids.”

That framing shifts the conversation. Entrepreneurship education is not a supplement to academic learning. It is preparation for a world where retrieving information is trivially easy and where the value sits entirely in what you do with it.

Why Hohoka Chose BizWorld | BizWorld x Taiwan International Partnership

Hohoka had already built its own entrepreneurship and financial literacy programs in Taiwan, earning recognition from both public and private sectors before the BizWorld partnership came into the picture. Thus, the decision to bring BizWorld in was not about filling a gap, it was about connecting Taiwan’s young people to something larger.

“I’ve been researching and looking at BizWorld’s programs for a long time,” Roick explains. “I believe we share the same values and we care about the same issues. The most important addition to us that BizWorld brings is connecting Taiwan’s kids to the world. BizWorld’s programs and infrastructure provides exactly the key to that.”

Taiwan produces outstanding engineers. It is one of the most technically capable workforces on the planet. But Roick saw clearly what the next step required.

“That’s good, but that’s not good enough. We want to cultivate the visionary business leaders who can actually lead those engineers to change the world. That’s one thing I believe BizWorld can bring to Taiwan.”

BizWorld’s curriculum provided the international framework, the global network, and the project-based structure that HohoKa wanted to bring to Taiwanese classrooms. The partnership was built on shared conviction: that entrepreneurship is a life skill, and that the right time to teach it is now.

If you’re an educator, school leader, or organisation exploring what it would take to bring entrepreneurship education to young people in your country, BizWorld’s international partnership program is a good place to start.

Learn more about joining us as a BizWorld International Partner now, and follow along with Hohoka and their work bringing entrepreneurship education to Taiwan.