Pact on entrepreneurship
THE ENTIRE entrepreneurship landscape is rapidly changing and there is a strong need to collaborate with others in order to keep up with these changes.
Coventry University International Centre for Transformational Entrepreneurship director Prof Gideon Maas says the whole entrepreneurship environment is changing so fast.
“We can’t wait for answers to come our way and we need to create answers for the future,” he says after a two-day workshop on enterprise and entrepreneurship educa- tion in the Malaysian higher education curriculum.
Transformational entrepreneurship is what’s needed to grow and nourish the enterprise ecosystem, he adds.
Prof Maas explains that transformational entrepreneurship is meant to transform the socio-economic landscape, so that all areas of society benefits from the economic growth.
He says this cannot be achieved alone by one party but needs the collaboration between the academia, government and industry.
“In short, it is a total system support for entrepreneurship to find solutions for sustainable socio-economic development,” he explains.
Tunku Abdul Rahman University College (TAR UC) Collaboration, Innovation and Entrepreneurship vice-president Assoc Prof Say Sok Kwan adds that to achieve this, there has to be an application of knowledge learnt at university.
However, he continues, it is not enough to just know but not apply any of the new found, innovative solutions.
As part of Coventry University’s commitment to help develop the enterprise and entrepreneurship educational ecosystem in Malaysia, Coventry University launched the South East Asia Institute for Transformational Entrepreneurship (SEAITE) at TAR UC.
The launch of SEAITE aims to spearhead focus on enterprise and entrepreneurial education and continuously build capacity and capability through research-led programmes. Presently,
SEAITE members include organisations from the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia and Vietnam.
He stresses that the SEAITE is an all-inclusive effort where input and solutions will be developed together with all the partners and stakeholders.
“We need to contextualise our solutions to match the needs of the country and region,” he adds.
He also says that they need to optimise the ecosystem which consists of education, highly commercialised innovation, support for innovation growth and acceleration.
With an emphasis on maintaining a sustainable ecosystem of knowledge, application and effective change, SEAITE aims to impact Malaysia in a way that supports current and upcoming government enterprise and entrepreneurial initiatives and provide graduates that will be equipped to participate in the growth of the economy. SEAITE, on an international scale, aims to promote an inclusive process of contextualising socio-economic solutions and accelerating growth of enterprise and entrepreneurship in the South East Asian region.
Assoc Prof Say says they would like to tap into the expertise of Coventry University and all the other partners through SEAITE.
These would include curriculum development and delivery, student support, and creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem.
However, she hopes that the Higher Education Ministry could allow for more flexibility as there are too many restrictions in place right now.
“This is so that the entrepreneurship ecosystem can grow and thrive.
“It would be quite difficult to deliver something that is entrepreneurial in nature when we have so many constraints laid out by the authorities.”