Assisting university students in pursuing their entrepreneurial dreams

The poster of the webinar

A webinar titled “Unipreneur: How a University Student Evolves to Be a Full-Fledge Entrepreneur” was organised by MCM GIC on 16 March 2021. The invited speakers were Head of Unovate Centre Dr Lee Sheng Chyan and CEO of MCM eCom Global Venture Dan Then Ikh Choo.

Dr Lee (right, most top) explaining how to foster an entrepreneurial culture on campus

Dr Lee was the first speaker. He gave a brief explanation on Unovate Centre and said, “The word ‘Unovate’ was assembled from UTAR Renovate Centre. The goal of the Centre is to cultivate and foster an entrepreneurial culture in the campus.”

Dr Lee also stated that he had worked with government and private universities, including Universiti Malaya (UM), Multimedia University (MMU), Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) and now UTAR. “I have signed partnerships with a lot of local, private and public universities. I have seen how students change from my time as a student at UM till today,” he added.

Dr Lee addressing issues faced by university students who set up a business

Dr Lee said, “As I started talking to all the student groups who have set up a business, I found that there were many challenges for the students. They want to become an entrepreneur because they want to control their own destiny; they don’t want to just work for people but work for themselves. And yes, that is a very big word.” Some of the challenges mentioned by Dr Lee include not having a solid business plan, business model and idea as those are very important aspects of becoming an entrepreneur.

“One of the challenges is the lack of business model; another challenge would be the lack of business idea. They do not do prior research on what they want to do; whether other people have done it or not. They just do it by themselves and think that it is something they can sell over. The third challenge is the scope of coverage; whether is it a service or a product and where they want to target the audience,” he said. Some of the business barriers mentioned by Dr Lee include the lack of capital to run a business, the lack of determination and the lack of a good mentor.

He also addressed another barrier in business which was their willingness to take risks and that led to another issue; the mindset. Dr Lee mentioned that the students, these days, have the mindset that they will become a billionaire, like Jack Ma, and they think they can speed up the process of generating the billionaire dream fast enough. “I believe they will eventually learn that it is not as simple as what they read from the textbook or what they learn in the classroom,” Dr Lee stated.

When it comes to opportunities, either positive or negative, he believes that the students have what it takes to become an entrepreneur. He said, “When they want to become an entrepreneur, of course, they will come up with some ideas where they need to have some sort of guidance. This is where we can use those kinds of circles to invite business mentors to assist the students. I think the support from the industry is extremely important to make the students understand their capabilities.”

Dr Lee mentioned that he is aware that students nowadays are very good at utilising technology. He said, “They are Internet users and they know how to make use of the tools on the Internet and turn it into a business. I could see that this is a very good opportunity for them. However, they need an idea and someone to help them realise it. I believe if they fully utilise the technology platform, they can actually venture into entrepreneurship.”

Dan Then (right) explaining digitalisation

The second speaker Dan Then shared about his experience of digitalisation toward the modern supply chain. “We are a consulting company that specialises in helping organisations, especially the ones that require fast-moving consumer goods, transform their supply chain from the traditional way to a modern one,” Dan Then stated.

Dan Then playing a video that featured the process of e-Commerce

After introducing himself and his company, Dan Then presented a video that featured the process of e-Commerce. He then said, “I hope that the video gave you a little insight into the end-to-end supply chain that has evolved from the traditional ways to the modern ones. This is what we call a new norm after the pandemic.”

Dan Then explaining “The ‘Killer’ Conventional Way”

Dan Then shared a method called “The ‘Killer’ Conventional Way” and explained how B2C (Business to Customer) functions under the new norm. “The ‘killer’ of the conventional way is mainly caused by the Service Level Agreement (SLA) and that is why many customers are dissatisfied because every time they make a purchase, either offline or online, it becomes an issue,” he said and added, “The university is one of the key factors that we could use to help students in the modern way; by creating an ecosystem inside the campus. It will be a single community on its own.”

He explained, “We would like to create a model that could empower the university to create a modern supply chain and this would be called the “O-to-O concept”. Consumers can buy through the online platform using mobile apps. With e-wallet and online payment gateways, consumers are given more options. This is largely due to geolocation. You can choose to buy and pick up at the selected retail store or you can request the courier to send to you or you can even request on-demand riders like LALAMOVE to deliver the products to you immediately.”

Dan Then explaining the functions of Micro Fulfilment Centre at UTAR

Dan Then also took the opportunity to announce that they were currently collaborating with UTAR to build a Micro Fulfilment Centre at UTAR, and it would be called the Campus Fulfilment Centre. “This is the warehouse that will be housing all the products from the lecturers and students and even alumni. We will manage it with our warehouse management system and we have also created the BizPorter structure to help sustain it,” he explained.

Dan Then explaining the access to the latest supply chain

Explaining the latest supply chain towards digital transformation, Dan Then said, “After the pandemic, everything moved toward digital transaction or e-Commerce or digital commence; we called it ‘paying online’ and ‘selling online’. We named this discovery as an online-to-offline, offline-to-online kind of platform.”

Dr Lee introducing a programme under Unovate Centre

Following that, Dr Lee announced a programme that was newly introduced under Unovate Centre. He said, “We came up with a programme called Structured Entrepreneur Cultivation Programme (STEP). The programme mainly touches on technology platforms since the students will need to make use of technology and work with strategic partners.” The programme is supported by Dan Then and his company.

Dr Lee explaining how Unovate Centre operates at UTAR

Before ending the talk, Dr Lee also explained how Unovate Centre operates in UTAR and the method and strategy utilised to help the university students achieve their entrepreneurial dream. Moreover, he elucidated on Unovate Value and Community.