A fierce debate has been going on in Silicon Valley regarding the presence of women in technology.  One side says women are sufficiently represented and have ample opportunities to excel, while another points to the statistics which show a dearth of women and a remaining old boys club culture surrounding venture capital. It’s interesting to take a moment and consider a different context: a dramatically different place, Oman.

An editorial in the New York Times points to Oman as an example of a country taking steps to reduce extremism and promote innovation through education. Forty years ago, Oman was a place from 400 years in the past: only six miles of paved roads, three schools serving only a handful of elite boys, banned radio and television (associated with the devil), and widespread illiteracy (read the article for a more shocking portrait).

However, with a change in government, extreme modernization took place starting with equal education and expectations for both boys and girls. Improved infrastructure, an emphasis on entrepreneurship, and learning English from a young age has helped the country become one of the most tranquil and successful in the Arab world. A girl whose grandmother was illiterate, bore ten children, and married at the age of 9,  this year was part of the team  winning the gold medal in an entrepreneurship challenge. An all girls team.

Besides showing how education can lead a nation to peace and tranquility, what can this story tell us about the debate going on in Silicon Valley?  Well let’s take a second to look at the broader context of entrepreneurship in the United States from a “Global Entrepreneurship and the United States” study, sponsored by the US SBA. The study compares US performance on the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (GEDI), which captures the contextual features of entrepreneurship. Initially, you may think that the US does well in such a study. I mean, we are the land of Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and Google.

Although the US has strong startup skills, competition, and new technology, there is a lack of cultural support and few high growth businesses. For example, the US scores lower than Canada and Nordic countries on entrepreneurial attitudes and activities. This means that although aspirations are high, actual action and execution are comparatively low. The study attributes this to weak cultural support stemming from American youth’s “perception of entrepreneurship as a viable career choice seem[ing] to be limited.”

If American culture does not support entrepreneurship and promote it in schools, the Silicon Valley argument becomes a shadow of a larger problem, one that transcends gender, and one which Oman seemingly has the answer to. Why aren’t we doing a better job of promoting entrepreneurship in schools? Except for limited parts of the country (ahem Bay Area), saying you work for a startup will cause most people to raise their eyebrows at you…an exact embodiment of a lack of cultural support for entrepreneurship as a viable career choice.

If we want to continue to be a beacon of innovation, we must promote entrepreneurship from a young age, and we must do it now.

Image thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/derekarridge/194833666/lightbox/