Uni school starts course on entrepreneur skills

By PETER ESILA
THE University of Papua New Guinea’s (UPNG) school of business and public policy has launched a week-long business planning workshop to help students develop entrepreneurial skills.
Executive dean Prof Lekshmi Pillai said in Port Moresby yesterday that
the programme would be followed by mid-year business planning competition.
He said this was to enable students to prepare a business plan and develop an interest and aptitude toward entrepreneurship.
He thanked ExxonMobil for supporting the programme.
“The simple thing is the change in attitude,” he said.
“The focus of this programme is to change the attitude of the people, making them think that they can be an entrepreneur, and be an employer than just be an employee,” he said.
Pillai said the programme was started last year and for the school (business) only, but they were now expanding it to the rest of the university.
He added that next year the plan was to include other tertiary institutions in Port Moresby and eventually in two or three years’ time make it a national programme for colleges and universities to participate.
Pillai said the programme could inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs.
He said the programme was in two stages, the first was the business development plan workshop and the second was a competition where students would be asked to submit their business plans, projects and proposals.