ITB Rector: Undergraduate StudentsÂ’ Role as Entrepreneurs
BANDUNG, itb.ac.id - Every year ITB graduated students in order to apply the lessons they learned for the community. The graduates are ITB's responsibility for Indonesia and the main work of ITB itself. Based on the fact, ITB Rector Prof. Akhmaloka, Dipl. Biotech., Ph.D. delivered the speech about the role of undergraduate students as entrepreneurs in the scientific oration in ITB Open Session which was held in the series of 2013/2014 third graduation events. Graduates and Entrepreneurship
If we talk about entrepreneurship, the keywords are "to catch the chance for the better". Howard Stevenson, an expert of entrepreneurship theory from Harvard Business School, differentiated the administrative approach and entrepreneur's approach. According to him, the main of entrepreneur's approach is "the pursuit of without regard to resources currently controlled". As an illustration, for example, an entrepreneur is able to create the chance to increase the productivity and improve the quality of the products no matter how bad the social networking and the present infrastructures. So, the mission of an entrepreneur is to catch the chance to create improvement. The improvement can be in the economic field or social works. The entrepreneurs are identical as business persons. In fact, the entrepreneurs can work as politicians, social workers, bureaucrats, or even scientists.
If there is vast fund, there must be lots of things can be done. If there is abundant resource, so the chance to make improvement is wider. However, what is the source limited? Is that the chance to make improvement also limited? In this situation, an entrepreneur is really demanded. For entrepreneurs, the limit of resource is not a problem in making improvement. Their skill is looking for opportunities. They are not radical but they can see the opportunity to succeed even there are borders in the situation where people are giving up. In brief, the characteristics of entrepreneurs are that they have mission on change and high commitment in making the change, they are not shackled on the resources, and they are careful on looking for opportunities in any situation even people see impossibility.
An entrepreneur will not be successful only with mission and strong commitment. He must have preparation in order to make opportunity into a change. According to Prof. Akhmaloka, knowledge is the preparation. Natural science, technology, art, and social science (ipteks) are important as the intellectual source. Mastering them will make the impossibility become more realistic to be done. However, to practice science in entrepreneurship, there shall be effort to facilitate the people to get to know the science. There are some points which shall be concerned: 1) the specific characters of people's current problems, 2) any kinds of sciences and the suitable potential on social and economic matters, 3) the social and economic condition shall be adopted in applying the science.
The Challenge of Indonesian Entrepreneurs in the Future
The challenge in Indonesian development is actually not caused by the limit of our resources. Of course, the resources must not exist forever. But, the resources which are here now will not value that much if we cannot create opportunity to make changes and facilitate the development in any field of life. For advancing and enlarging the development, Indonesia needs entrepreneurs to work in private and public sectors. By becoming entrepreneurs, the graduates can play a great role in presenting the science to the public and making the science as the pillar of our development. "May God Who Has All Sciences directs us in His way so that we can make science as our resources for the sake of our people and the pillar of Indonesian development," Prof. Akhmaloka said as he ended the speech.
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