Combining entrepreneurship with new tech
View(s):At a time when entrepreneurship is addressed in forums discussing economics and development of the country, today’s most essential need is rapid economic growth where export products and services are value added with innovation and knowledge inbuilt to products so that the production cost and the selling price would have a big margin.
Speaking on the topic “The need for innovative and entrepreneurial graduates” the above comment was made by Prof. Ananda Jayawardene, Director General, The National Science Foundation, former Vice Chancellor, Moratuwa University and Senior Prof in Civil Engineering in the same university while making the Convocation Address at the recently held Convocation Ceremony at the Wayamba University.
The Wayamba University responds to the industry needs with improvements to its infrastructure, new faculties, departments and academic programmes, Prof. Jayawardene said complementing the university for earning a reputation in this regard.
His address was based on four areas: Efforts of Wealth Creation; the power of innovation and entrepreneurship; the fear and social acceptance; and leading to meet the challenge.
Earning foreign exchange by selling products and services to foreign markets is creating wealth for the country, he stressed and said that they must have to meet the global competition.
He said that they have not improved the value addition to the high tech products over decades and according to World Bank statistics in 2016, Sri Lanka stands at 1 per cent of all exports, a low figure compared to countries like Thailand 22 per cent, Malaysia 43 per cent and Singapore 49 per cent, indicating that what is alarming is that even poorer countries such as Ethiopia 17 per cent and Myanmar 8 per cent are better than Sri Lanka.
According to the latest statistics he pointed out that investment on R&D is 0.10 per cent of GDP, the lowest in the region while in India it is 0.63 per cent; Malaysia 1.3 per cent, Singapore 2.2 per cent, Korea 4.23 per cent and Israel 4.27 per cent. Prof. Jayawardene indicated that Sri Lanka is less than even poorer countries such as Kenya 0.78 per cent and Nepal 0.3 per cent.
However, he said the concerned authorities, including the government have realised the shortcomings and are taking corrective action.
Today invention (discovery) to innovation (application) is very fast and explosive subjected to fast improvements and many changes are seen in information technology leading to Internet of Things (IOT) – the gateway for innovations disrupting the conventional ways of doing business, he indicated.
Comparing the innovative companies with Sri Lanka, he said this country has a total economy of US$ 93.45 billion. Facebook is worth $541 billion and its founder Mark Zuckerberg is worth $81.6 billion.
He indicated that Airbnb is a US company providing an online marketplace and hospitality service for people to lease or rent short-term accommodation without owning any of those facilities.
He said that Alibaba, founded by Jack Ma, is a Chinese company and one of the world’s largest online market platforms hosting millions of users and millions of merchants. It makes money by charging a commission from the users and subscription by the merchants. Graduates are the best to create innovative enterprises where they could become job creators, rather than job seekers.
His key message to the passing out graduates was that while the universities are doing the best for them, their performance would lead to contribute to the country’s economy and raise the standards of living of the people. ‘Self-leadership’ is required, because to be successful one needs to provide leadership to him first before leading others, Prof. Jayawardene remarked.
He urged the graduates to make their life targets to be leaders, to be successful to set goals as the benchmarks to be achieved in life are education, marriage, wealth, health, house, employment, their skills, competencies, sports and even their behaviour, value addition to themselves would be their stimuli.
He said that they would respond to various stimuli in their lives in different ways, because between every stimulus and response, there is a very important space called “freedom to choose”. This space is available only to humans, it is almost zero for animals who respond to a stimuli without any space to choose.
(QP)