YOUNG GRADUATES ENTREPRENEURSHIP COURSE

INTRODUCTION

Entrepreneurial activities have become very important as they stimulate economic development and help in the creation of employment opportunities. Many governments including Malaysia have recognised the contribution of entrepreneurial activities to the national economic growth and have started to provide various forms of assistance and facilities to boost entrepreneurship in their respective countries.

Women entrepreneurs have also been recognised as an important contributor to the growth of the SMEs and indirectly to the nation’s economy. However, the number of women owned SMEs are low especially in the less developed and developing nations.

Despite having made huge progress academically, girls have not chosen entrepreneurship as their career path. Young female graduates are more likely to work in public administration, health, educational and services industries.

It was hoped that through this course, the women participants would gained a great deal of insights and exposure on the real scenarios of entrepreneurship and consider business and entrepreneurship as an alternative career path that would offer them greater job satisfaction as well as economic success.

The Course aimed to educate the participants through:

1. A series of mini lectures and special talks by guest speakers who are industry practitioners and successful entrepreneurs.
2. Group roundtable discussions.
3. A “Bring Your Own Case” experiential workgroup.
4. Industry engagements/study excursions to a few local businesses in Kota Kinabalu.

OBJECTIVES OF THE COURSE

1. Provide exposure/interaction and deliberate on the latest challenges and key issues faced by young women entrepreneurs to better market access in the country and beyond.
2. Serve as a platform to establish networking between participating women entrepreneurs.
3. Enhance the role and capacities of the participants to operate effectively and efficiently.
4. Educate the participants how to comprehend changes in the national and global economies so as to enable them to identify and successfully pursue business opportunities.
5. Gain business inspirations from the industry engagement visits.
6. Learn successful business models and best practices from successful entrepreneurs (guest speakers) and replicating these business models in their home country.

The participation of young women entrepreneurs from the NAM countries at the Course would be an added advantage as transnational networking would:

1. Help participants understand the business culture in other countries.
2. Provides a powerful stimulant for contacts and collaboration.
3. Promotes multicultural interactions and awareness of cross-cultural perspective which would stimulate creativity and innovation in business, and
4. Help facilitate cross-border and cross-industry partnerships amongst them.

WHO ATTENDED?

This Workshop was designed for:

1. Young women graduates who wish to be entrepreneurs.
2. Young women entrepreneurs who have just started their business less than a year.
3. Young women entrepreneurs who are in the business between 1 – 3 years.
4. NGOs.
5. Senior government officials from Ministries & government agencies.
6. Masters & PhD students in Entrepreneurship.

Ms. Goh Ai Yat
Joint Managing Consultant
SBF Group

Goh Ai Yat,a former senior banker, regularly conducts entrepreneurial and development programmes. She trains organisational employees to adopt entrepreneurial thinking in preparation for increasingly competitive business landscapes, and individuals who are aspiring entrepreneurs.

She is privileged to be recognised as the first and only principal trainer in Asia for The Back of the Napkin™ – Solving Problems with Pictures. The Back of the Napkin was voted the Best Innovation Book of 2008 by BusinessWeek and Fast Company. It was Amazon’s fifth best selling business book in 2008 and a best seller in China, South Korea, and Japan.

Ai Yat also developed and conducts the programmes: Starting Your Own Business, The Self-Employed Training Workshops, The Entrepreneurial Manager, The Entrepreneurial Employee, Thriving On Challenges, Visual Thinking, Creativity & Innovation – The Rules Have Changed!, and Networking & Relationship Management.

Her clients include multi-national companies, government agencies, as well as educational and financial insitutions in Singapore, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Brunei, China, India, Indonesia, Macau, and Sri Lanka.

Besides training, Ai Yat is also actively involved in advising and helping business people in identifying and structuring their financing needs, preparation of feasibility reports, development of new markets, and business tie-ups. She currently teaches Entrepreneurship for the RMIT University degree programme at SIM Global Education, and Entrepreneurship and Strategic Finance Issues for an Australian MBA program.

Ai Yat herself has started and operated a number of businesses very successfully

Norlin Nor
Head
World Islamic Economic Forum-UiTM International Centre (WIEF-UiTM)
Universiti Teknologi MARA
As well as a Full-Time Lecturer,
Department of International Business,
Faculty of Business Management,
Universiti Teknologi MARA
40250 Shah Alam
Selangor

She is an Alumni of the Faculty of Business Studies of Universiti Teknologi MARA, Point Park University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Laredo State University in Laredo, Texas, USA. Upon returning to Malaysia, she started her career in the Marketing Research Department of The New Straits Times Group of Companies (the largest newspaper company in Malaysia) for 5 years before being promoted to Manager, Group Corporate Communications for 2 years. During her tenure with The NSTP Group of Companies, she was directly involved in most of the milestone projects organised by the Company such as The Malay Mail Big Walk, Penang Bridge Run, Berita Harian Tarik Tali Competition, Berita Harian Penyanyi/Pelakon Popular, Bob Hope Live Special, The Magic of David Copperfield, Chinese Acrobatic Show, NST Mother’s Day Celebration and many more.

Then she moved on to PLUS Expressway Berhad (Projek Lebuhraya Utara-Selatan Berhad is the largest tolled expressway company in Malaysia) as the Manager, Corporate Communications (Media and Marketing Management) and was instrumental in the Official Opening of the entire North-South Expressway by the former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 1994. After being in PLUS Expressway Berhad for 4 years, she later moved back to the media scene and joined the broadcasting industry as the General Manager, Group Corporate Communications, in MetroVision (or TV4). She was deeply involved in the production of a few top-rated children’s television programmes for TV2 and was the Executive Producer and Scriptwriter of Golden Kids News, Golden Kids Club and Golden Teen Stuff which were the top rated children’s TV programs on air over the national television TV2. She was also responsible in the acquisition of high-rated American and European television programmes at TV markets in Cannes, France for TV4. On top of that she was instrumental in all the TV4 publicity and promotional campaigns and managing all the corporate events for the station. She had spent 6 years in the broadcasting industry.

Before joining the Universiti Teknologi MARA in Shah Alam (UiTM) in January 2001 as a full time lecturer with the Faculty of Business Management, she had a short stint of one year with the Sunway Lagoon Theme Park as its first PR Manager. After spending about 18 years with the private sector, she then joined University Teknologi MARA until present teaching International Business, Management, Human Resource Management, Personal Development and other business courses. She, however, continued to work for the media industry as a Marketing Communications Consultant for another 5 years.

She has also published in esteemed international Journals and has presented papers at a few international conferences. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the WIEF-UiTM Occasional Papers, an Editorial Member of the Journal on Emerging Economies and Islamic Research (JEEIR www.jeeir.com), a Senior Editorial Member of the Emerald’s Journal of Islamic Marketing (JIM), and the Editor-in-Chief of the NIEW Journal – The Voice from the NAM Woman. She has also published a few coffee table books – the latest are on Tan Sri Mustafa Kamal of EMKAY Land, UiTM Perlis The Fellowship of the Arau Ring Memoirs and is currently writing 2 – 3 more coffee table books (one is on a very unique and special project on Organic Architecture for the Sultan of Johore). She has also been invited to review papers in a few academic journals.

She is constantly very active in organising and conducting global discourses, forums, trainings, courses, workshops for both the public and private sectors. She is a Trainer-cum-Facilitator in many women and young entrepreneurship workshops as well as women leadership workshops. She has conducted several workshops and short courses for the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development, NAM Institute for the Empowerment of Women (NIEW is under the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development), the Prime Minister Department, the World Islamic Economic Forum Foundation, Tenaga Nasional group of companies, Malaysia Central Bank Affiliates, Embassy of Sudan, NGOs, hospitality industry as well as a few other private organisations.