Businesses count on universities for new sparkle

KUCHING: Universities in the state are encouraged to collaborate with relevant agencies to create high impact agenda for entrepreneurship.

Citing the University Community Transformation Centre ( UCTC) launched by the government as an example, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak ( Unimas) assistant vice chancellor Assoc Prof Dr Mohd Ibrahim Safawi Mohd Zain said it is an initiative to enable students and staff from higher learning institutions to contribute to the community and assist local entrepreneurs in their endeavours.

“Under UCTC, our university has four main criteria for our activities; namely that the project has to be of high impact, low cost, sustainable and should be rapidly executed within one year at most,” he remarked during his welcoming address at the ‘Spark 2015 Workshop on Innopreneurship’ held at a local hotel here yesterday.

The two- day workshop, organised by Sarawak Entrepreneurs Association ( SEA) and Unimas UCTC, was officiated by Pantai Damai assemblyman Dr Abdul Rahman Junaidi who represented Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister’s Office ( Bumiputera Entrepreneur Development) Datuk Mohd Naroden Majais.

Since embarking on the initiative last year, Ibrahim said the university had carried out various projects under UCTC.

“This included a project at Kampung Setunggan Melayu in Lundu where we have our team from the Faculty of Business and Faculty of Engineering go on the ground and engage with entrepreneurs involved in products such as ‘ keropok’, chili sauce and so on in the hope of making them better entrepreneurs.

“We have since undergone two deals with them namely on branding and quality and after this it will be on finance. Once this is completed, their products should have some good branding and proper business procedure,” he explained, adding that Unimas as a local institution in Sarawak endeavours within its ability to help contribute to the community.

Meanwhile, SEA chairman Simon Wong said the association looked forward to working with Unimas on ways to spark more ideas to enhance entrepreneurship in the state.

“The original idea of this event started with how we can bridge Unimas students or researchers by commercialising ideas from the university with industry players.

“It is through this workshop that we would like to empower participants to come up with ideas and help SEA draft a blueprint in our bid to make this ecosystem a sustainable one for entrepreneurship in Sarawak,” he added.