2nd UTAR Entrepreneurship Day nurtures new entrepreneurs

UTAR Faculty of Accountancy and Management (FAM), in collaboration with UTAR Entrepreneurship and Management Club (EMC) and Unovate Centre, organised the 2^nd Entrepreneurship Day from 5 to 6 December 2022 at UTAR Sungai Long Campus. The event consisted of various activities such as talks, night performances, and a market event called “Secret of Woods”.

The 2^nd Entrepreneurship Day kicked off with an opening ceremony on 5 December 2022. UTAR Vice President for R&D and Commercialisation Prof Ts Dr Faidz bin Abd Rahman, FAM Dean Dr Sia Bee Chuan and Organising Chairperson, Assoc Prof Dr Mohammad Falahat Nejadmahani were all in attendance.

Prof Ts Dr Faidz gave a speech to all the attendees, saying, “UTAR, as an educational institution, supports the government’s mission in building a progressive nation by educating the youths and training them with an entrepreneurial mindset. We believe that a university does not only nurture future job seekers, but also future job creators as entrepreneurs. In the current economic trend, the gig economy is quickly gaining recognition as a contributor to economic growth in Malaysia and the future. We foresee a large number of people becoming freelancers or self-employed. As such, entrepreneurial skills are essential for sustainability and resilience in order to adapt to global challenges and changes where conservative practices and approaches are no longer applicable in the industry.”

Prof Faidz giving his speech

Front row, from left: Dr Falahat, Prof Faidz, and Dr Sia

Prof Faidz, Dr Sia and Dr Falahat visiting the booths

On the same day, a talk show competition was also conducted, where the participants, namely UTAR students, demonstrated their ideas through acute discussions and evaluated deep dilemmas while being judged by a panel of professionals. After the competition, students were able to relax and unwind with Entrepreneurship Day’s Christmas Night event. The main objective of this activity was to temporarily take students’ attention away from their studies, allowing them to de-stress and enjoy the many singing and dancing performances during the night.

The second day of the event (6 December 2022) saw a talk held at UTAR Multipurpose Hall, with Assoc Prof in Strategy, Enterprise and Innovation at Edinburgh Business School, Heriott-Watt University, UK, Dr Jay Wasim, invited as the speaker. During his talk, Dr Jay spoke about various topics to inspire the students to become future entrepreneurs. For instance, he said, “When starting up your business, you have to be prepared to face failures. A lot of big and successful companies have faced a lot of failures countless times, and yet, they are still thriving to this day. This is because, with every failure, there is a lesson to be learned and taken to heart.” He added, “When setting up your business in the future, one extremely important aspect you have to take into consideration is how your product or service can solve a societal problem, need or want. This is because by fulfilling either of these three, people would be more drawn to your business as it helps to satisfy their requirements.”

Dr Jay giving his talk

Dr Falahat (left) presenting a token of appreciation to Dr Jay (right)

Not only that, the market event, Secret of Woods, was held for two days. The main objective of this market was to let students improve their ability in selling products, enhance their communication skills when interacting with buyers, and provide an open and diversified creative platform for students to promote creativity and innovation. The booths set up by EMC, Unovate and general students were on display, selling items such as food, clothing, decorations, jewellery and other miscellaneous items. As part of their project, 20 groups of students from the UKTE2013 Entrepreneurship course also set up their booths, selling and presenting their unique businesses. The list of groups and a brief description of each of their products are listed below:

No.	Group Name	Product Description
1.	RentLA	The first-ever renting platform in UTAR, which offers study equipment purchased from students to rent out to other students at a low fee.
2.	Soapy Secret	Water Soluble Hand Soap Paper, a disposable hand wash soap with paper sheets used to wash hands, with six fragrance variations.
3.	Happy	Scented candles that can help to improve mood, air smell, and reduce stress, with five available flavours.
4.	Wisteria.life	A 3-in-1 all-natural capsulated hair shampoo which can solve dandruff issues, and is easily carried around, especially when travelling.
5.	Fix U Beauty House	An upcycle cosmetic service that repairs make-up products which are broken, crushed, dry or cracked, and offers the changing of lipstick colours.
6.	Life Chronicle	A digital journal planner template that allows university students and office workers to keep track of their plans with the daily, weekly and monthly tracking planner, period tracker, expenses tracker, goal-setting and to-do list.
7.	Co&Shine Makeup Transformation Service	A makeup and friend-match/dating service, with the main focus being to help out women who are inexperienced or interested in applying makeup, whilst assisting university students to match up with new friends or potential partners.
8.	Night Owl Logistic	A start-up logistics company that provides night-time delivery services, whilst also acting as a temporary storage station.
9.	WeCare-Disabilities Aid Services	WeCare offers disabilities aid devices, such as the Kitchen Helper, Beeper Clip and Sock Assistant to help those with disabilities, injuries and special needs.
10.	Mandow	This service focuses on creating videos of shadows performing different actions, to trick criminals and prevent them from breaking into houses.
11.	Hydro & Co	A flavor-scented bottle with the purpose of enhancing customers’ drinking experience and improve their health. It uses only aromatic flavours rather than sugar, preservatives and calories.
12.	PETSGO	A platform where users and sellers can find their desired pet services such as pet grooming, veterinarian services, pet walking, training services, pet adoption and pet sitting, whilst sharing their experiences about pets and pet stores.
13.	Sweet and Scent	A healthy beverage known as Blossom Fruit Tea, which contains a mixture of flowers and fruits, with no artificial flavouring. It can help in combating tiredness, alerting the mind, and improving skin condition.
14.	Delicatessen	An application which can help users to solve their daily food decision problems, by providing the restaurants’ menu, price and customer feedback.
15.	ECL Foods	A one-kilogram lunch box that sells for the low price of RM9.90, with the goal of allowing low-income consumers and big eaters to buy a sufficient amount of food at a reasonable price. They also provide a low-cost delivery service to send out the lunch box.
16.	Mecanicien Furieux	An RC Car that children can build and design on their own to prevent their imagination, creativity, social and teambuilding skills from worsening.
17.	Jellyboing	Healthy, delicious homemade fruit jellies consisting of three different flavours which are coconut, mango and orange, and have no preservatives and less sugar. This is to fulfil the customers’ dessert cravings while providing them with nutrition.
18.	Launmower	A laundry delivery service that offers customers laundry cleaning and delivery, with services such as handwashing, machine washing, drying, folding and ironing.
19.	House of Nutrition	A ready-to-cook meal kit to provide customers with healthy and delicious meals at reasonable prices, and is simple to prepare. It relieves customers of the need to plan meals, shop for groceries and prepare ingredients.
20.	Zejats Learning Hub	A mobile app which has all the different resources that a university student needs in order to carry out their university tasks effectively.