Young entrepreneurs encouraged to believe in themselves

By LUKE KAMA

PAPUA New Guineans need to get rid of the colonial mentality that expatriates can do the jobs better than locals.
Institute of National Affairs (INA) executive director Paul Barker made the remark during a meeting with young and aspiring entrepreneurs in the Information Communication and Technology sector.
They were to make presentations to the INA on the products they are offering for sale.
Some of them, especially the software engineers, had studied the problems and weaknesses in the governance system and are developing innovative programmes, software and applications to address the loopholes and strengthen the existing systems of governance.
Barker welcomed what they were doing and said it was time for the government to create a conducive environment for young entrepreneurs who were smart and innovative to address some of the problems in the country.
“I think it’s important that Papua New Guineans be able to change their colonial mentality and be de-colonised to give fellow young Papua New Guineans the opportunity to prove themselves that they are smart and can get the job done by themselves for the country.”
Software engineer Leonard Wanusiu, of Minsoft ,said there was a need for the Government to support ICT development.
“Some of the applications, software and programmes we need should be developed based on our needs,” Wanusiu said. “That’s important because importing these technology from overseas is very expensive and sometimes, it does not work properly for us and we have seen it.
“So government needs to support the development of local ICT and we can build on innovations in ICT within the country to address many of the issues affecting us in all sectors of our economy.
“Be it in health, education, law and order, economy, we can use ICT to help us solve these problems.”