UNIVERSITI Teknologi Brunei (UTB) through its UTB School of Business is introducing a new initiative, which will require all of its Business undergraduates to set up a registered company by their third year of study.
This initiative is in response to the titah of His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Sa’adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam, Chancellor of UTB, at the UTB Convocation Ceremony 2016, in which His Majesty urged UTB to continue introducing other relevant programmes that can boost the country’s economic development.
This includes efforts to review and revise its curriculum in the field of entrepreneurship.
In an interview, Dr Haji Saleem bin Haji Nazmudeen, the Dean of UTB School of Business, said that the initiative is to prepare the future graduates with an entrepreneurial mindset.
The dean also mentioned that the modern economic growth is based on the rapid growth of new small and medium enterprises (SMEs). However, entrepreneurial opportunities cannot be developed and created by a single agency alone.
Dr Haji Saleem bin Haji Nazmudeen, the Dean of Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB) School of Business (C), in a group photo. – UTB
Therefore, UTB will be working very closely with DARe (Darussalam Enterprise), the Department of Economic Planning and Development (JPKE) and other relevant government and private agencies to ensure students are guided and supported in their business ventures.
An entrepreneurship incubator has also been established by the school to further support this initiative.
The core activities of the entrepreneurship initiative include licensing (capitalisation of knowledge) and the creation of new ventures (new firms, start-ups and spin-offs) thus potentially creating new jobs and other utilisation efforts. The business ventures will provide UTB graduates with the necessary skills and empowerment to face the competitive economy. Students will be equipped with entrepreneurial experience, which can help develop, and strengthen their skills such as communication, teamwork and problem-solving.
The entrepreneurship initiative is also hoped to support Brunei Darussalam’s talent growth as well as contribute to the economic development of the country.
In the long run, the school aspires to become a knowledge hub for entrepreneurs, investors and other stakeholders by building an Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation Centre at the university. Amongst others, the school also aims to achieve near 100 per cent employability rate for the graduates through this new entrepreneurship initiative.
During the interview, Dr Haji Saleem also shared that all the Business programmes offered by UTB School of Business highly emphasise on outcome-based learning, shifting away from the traditional teaching/learning model and are blended with information systems and technology, which would make UTB graduates more competitive, and market-ready once they graduate, as according to the dean, in today’s world the success of any business depends on innovation and today’s innovation is driven by Information Technology.
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