7 Universities Will Become The Center For Producing New Businessman

JAKARTA – Seven universities in Indonesia will become a growth hub or the center of growth for entrepreneurship in Indonesia. All seven universities will focus on producing new businessmen.

The seven universities are Universitas Padjajaran, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Universitas Brawijaya, Universitas Islam Indonesia, Universitas Ahmad Dahlan. STIE Malangkucecwara (ABM) and President University. All of them will cooperate with four European universities to build entrepreneurship
ecosystem in Indonesia.

Director General of Learning and Student Affairs (Belmawa) of Ministry of Research and Technology and Higher Education (Kemenristekdikti), Ismunandar, said that they will form a consortium by joining with four Europe universities, they are University of Gloucestershire (UK), Dublin Institute of Technology (Ireland),
Fachhochscule des Mittelstandes (Germany) and University of Innsbruck (Austria).

“What I like from this program is that they have growth hub, a hub for improvement. Those universities will become the entrepreneurship growth centre.” Ismunandar said after a discussion ‘Education and Entrepreneurship and also a Policy Proposal for Indonesian Universities’ in Kemenristekdikti office, Jakarta, Yesterday.

Those seven Indonesian universities and four European universities will create a cooperation project which is called as Growing Indonesia Triangular Approach or GITA project. This project is funded by Erasmus, a commission in European Union which support numerous events in education, training, youth and sports field in numerous countries.

According to its name, the word triangular refer to three approaches used in GITA project. The approaches cover effective cooperation relation between universities and companies, put the spirit of entrepreneurship to all universities stakeholders, and also build new companies from the ideas and innovations which contributed to local or region economy.

Through GITA project, those seven universities will become a growth hub, which is a place for academicians, students, alumni, start up, and companies to gather, share ideas, and collaborate. Other than that, GITA project will also involve small and medium enterprises (UMKM) which will share their experience about entrepreneurship.

Through press broadcast, it was stated that overseas, there are many businessmen were born from the universities. Even there were students who directly fall as businessmen after they graduate. In Bobson College, United State of America for example. According to the report of Financial Times (2015), there were 46%
graduates from MBA program of Babson College who directly open their own business.

Then, there were 34% of graduates from Stanford Graduate School of Business also opened their own business. At Harvard Business School, there were 28% of its graduates who directly did entrepreneurship. While in MIT Sloan, the rate reached 26%. In England, there were 27% of graduates from Oxford University who became
businessmen.

Other university, in London Business School, there were 25% of its graduates who chosen entrepreneurship. That kind of effort which is now being done by seven universities in this country to bring into reality of its vision to produce new businessmen.

Former Atdikbid (Education and Culture Attache) of Indonesia explained in Washington DC, the ecosystem of entrepreneurship education cannot be done only in university. All have to involved, like the government who create the policy and community involvement as the support.

Ismunandar explained, government can push domestic universities to run entrepreneurship. For private universities, he said, can also adjust it with government policy. “Indonesia needs new businessmen to lower the unemployment level,” hesaid.

Professor from School of Business & Technology, University of Gloucestershire and also the chairman of GITA project, Neil Towers said, entrepreneurship education is very important to be put into university curriculum. And also, this education can appraise the challenges that show up in applying the institutional strategy.

Source: okezone.com

translator: david