-seeking private sector funding

Seven University of Guyana students pursuing studies in various disciplines will later this month join counterparts from India, China, Myanmar, Guyana, Algeria, Thailand and Japan in an intensive two-week Entrepreneurship Innovation Programme. Global and (GE2)

The programme offered by the University of Massachusetts’ Lowell Manning School of Business was created to develop and promote global partnerships and collaborations between the university and leading international institutions in the area of entrepreneurship education and research. The programme is driven by the belief that participation therein affords nonUnited States participants the opportunity to benefit from access to technology and resources. At the same time US students participating in the programme have an opportunity to study abroad in China and India and take part in global programmes with students and faculty from other countries.

The course is designed to help students understand the importance of entrepreneurship and innovation in today’s global economy and to cultivate an entrepreneurial mind-set. Additionally, students will; be required to work on real life technological projects and evaluate their commercialization potential and opportunities. These projects will be sourced from a number of sources.

The University of Guyana students – Malcolm Wills (Faculty of Health Sciences), Joel Harrihar (Faculty of Natural Sciences), Neil Balram (Faculty of Natural Sciences), Lakeram Ramdhan, (Faculty of Natural Sciences), Rene Hamilton (Faculty of Natural Sciences),. Farnaz Baksh (Faculty of Natural Sciences) and Shaquimha Hanley (Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry) all expressed to this newspaper their entrepreneurial ambitions with some disclosing that they were already running modest business ventures.

Whilst in the USA the Guyanese students will be required to explore opportunities on a global basis and as such will be required to apply their own local knowledge to their respective pursuits in areas that might include engineering, marketing, operations and finance.

During the course of the exercise the students will participate in moderated sessions that will cover critical entrepreneurship topics including Essentials of Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Business Model Generation; Customer Discovery and development; Team Building and Leadership; Digital Marketing; Making Presentations and Financing New Ventures.

Last week, the students were readying themselves to meet with local business support organizations including the Private Sector Commission, the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association with a view to securing sponsorship support to help cover the cost of the exercise.