European business networking group to help M’sian students set up enterprises

KUALA LUMPUR: Brusselsbased European Confederation of Junior Enterprises (JADE) is keen to help university students in Malaysia acquire and sharpen their entrepreneurial skills by operating business ventures known as Junior Enterprises (JE).

Under the JE concept, students will set up, develop and operate non-profit real-life businesses to learn about the successes or failures associated with a business venture while still at university.

“JE dramatically improves a student’s career perspective with 60 per cent of them usually finding work before ending their studies,” JADE Vice President Marion Depouilly told Bernama in an interview recently.

She said that 26 per cent of Junior Entrepreneurs end up starting their own business within the first three years upon graduation while some companies in Europe also insist on employing only people with JE experience because they are already well-versed in running a business.

JADE is an international umbrella organisation of enterprises across Europe, with a network of 14 national federations and consultative members from Europe and a total of up to 280 JEs generating more than 16 million euros annually.

Depouilly said JADE expects to create the first Malaysia JE soon through the winning team at the Arena of Youth (AoY) competition of the ‘Rebuild It Green’ (RIG) segment for university students held in conjunction with International Construction Week (ICW 2016).

Malaysia’s Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) has come on board with the seed money for the winning team to set up the JE for which JADE will give training and support.

Universiti Teknologi MARA won the RIG competition with its Disaster Management & Mitigation Plan whereby students had to conceptualise the best ideas to mitigate the impact of natural disasters in Malaysia. The winning team will be able to seek advice from JADE on how it wants to start the JE initiative.

The other contestants -- from Universiti Kuala Lumpur, KDU University College, Penang and Asia Pacific University -- were also encouraged to explore the possibility of setting JEs on their own.

Depouilly, along with JADE global public affairs senior project manager Ana Carolina Zimmermann, were among the members of the jury at the AoY competition.

Both Depouilly, who is from France, and Brazilian Zimmermann are also executive board members of JADE.

Zimmermann said that for JEs to flourish, there is no need for large amounts of seed money as even without it, students can learn how to be good entrepreneurs as they would be exposed early to both successes and failures of businesses.

She said that JEs, besides becoming an entrepreneurial training ground to help university students gain employment with large and reputable corporations, also assist small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to procure products or professional services at lower costs.

“SMEs or other companies also have the confidence that they are dealing with JEs that have the research backing of their universities as well as mentoring from those who had graduated,” said Zimmermann. — Bernama