Does formal education limit entrepreneurship? part 2

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advice, education, entrepreneur, farrah gray, formal, life, mindset

In the first part, I talked about the mindset having too much formal education gives you. It is that you’ll always think about having a safety net. But as they say, to explore new oceans, you must first lose sight of the shore.

for the second part, I would like to talk about another mindset challenge. Remember when you were young, your parents told you to:

Hendy Setiono

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baba, baba rafi, business, businessman, businessweek, entrepreneur, hendy, hendy setiono, indonesia, kebab, kebab turki, rafi, tempo., turki

A friend of mine, Hendy Setiono is the person everyone his age wants to be. Successful, married, financially free. But this didn’t come to him just like that. While his friends were busy doing their college assignments and preparing for exams, he was already managing his business; a Kebab Franchise called Kebab Turki, under the company PT Baba Rafi.

Indonesia 2030 and why there are critics

The audacious goal of Indonesia 2030 has it’s fair share of critics. The critics claim that it is an unrealistic goal considering Indonesia’s current condition. Some of them were even bold enough to predict a future downfall of the country’s economy. Some of the reasons behind such criticisms are;

• The country has too much debt (read: no money to fuel the growth)
• Our people are undereducated (read: our people are dumb)
• Its too hard (read: I just don’t think I can work that hard)
• It just doesn’t make sense (read: my mind isn’t smart enough to cope with the idea)

Though critics abound, by all means, the optimistic prediction wasn’t just made by the Yayasan Indonesia Forum , but it was also explicitly stated in;

• the Goldman Sachs economic predictions (BRIC + Indonesia)
• the UBS global forecast
• the book, Wikinomics by Dan Tapscott (from the internet industry point of view)

So why are there very different conclusions to the same topic? From what I see, the

Indonesia 2030, a vision

Indonesia is going to be an economic superpower by 2030. This prediction isn’t something that I just made up, but was actually the brainchild of a cross sectoral committee whose members include ministers, CEOs, analysts and academicians. This committee was sponsored by Yayasan Indonesia Forum.

So what is this “vision” thats creating all the ruckus? It is that, by the year 2030, Indonesia will be a Developed Country that Leads in Natural Resources Management. This will be mirrored by 4 major milestones;

1. Indonesia as the world’s 5th largest economy with an Income per Capita of$18.000 and a population of 285.000.000
2. Sustainable use of Natural Resources; energy self-reliance and included in the world’s top 10 travel destinations
3. A modern and equal standard of living for every citizen; Top 30 in regards of the Human Development Index
4. 30 companies included in the Fortune 500 list (I book a spot!)

Hans Rosling, statistics to ‘read’ the world

It turns out that our ideas of the world are because of preconceived ideas. Hans Rosling shows that visually beautiful statistics can change our view of the world. His website offers people the chance to see the world’s statistics, with data compiled from the United Nations database, presented in a beautifully designed software (live streaming from the internet, not download able).

Hans Rosling is a teacher of International Health to Swedish Undergraduate students. In his monumental TED talk, he teaches Global Development to the rest of the world. In this entertaining and inspiring talk, Rosling presented a new way of the general population to look at the world’s data. Data which was collected but never used because no one has ever found a way to present them in an interesting package.

OK, so what does this have to do with an entrepreneur? everything. A set of data is a place to spot opportunities. The person that can use more data in his/her decision making process will have a bigger probability to come up with better solutions, or more creative ideas. For example, Rosling’s presentation unveils that the social conditions of Vietnam in 2003 are roughly the same as USA’a social condition in 1974. If you are a true entrepreneur, you would check out USA 1974 to come up with ideas for Present World Vietnam . Because they have the same basic social conditions, they would most likely absorb the same businesses and ideas. Adjustments are to be made, of course. You could even analyze trends in the world and start projecting where your country will be! and the great thing is that we don’t have to even waste time on looking and compiling all the data!

You know what’s even more exciting? turns out that ALL the data on public statistics in the history of mankind takes the same hard disk size as Lord Of The Rings.

click here to watch the talk

or

click here to go to play with the data

Business Mentoring

Mentoring plays a very important role in a person’s success in business. A mentor is someone that you can talk to and consult on everything about business, someone who will delightfully include you in his/her business network and introduce you to those critical people in your business career. It’s hard to make it in the business world without a mentor. Fortunately though, it isn’t hard to get one. as long as you apply these simple rules for an effective mentoring relationship;

Chairul Tanjung

Mr. Chairul Tanjung came to Institut Teknologi Bandung to give a presentation about leadership and entrepreneurship. This event was organized by the students of ITB School of Business and Management’ leadership class. Indonesia’s golden boy, Chairul Tanjung started his first business as a college freshman (majoring in dentistry) in 1981. He took the initiative to provide a book bundling service needed by his classmates at 40% discount rate compared to what other services offer. He pocketed 50% of his revenue without any capital investments needed. He then proceeded to reach his life-time dream; to become the head of the student body.

On 1984 he founded his first CV and at 1987, his first limited liability (PT) company. He started a venture with three of his friends to manufacture and export shoes. His career skyrocketed, ironically, during the Asian fiscal and economic crisis. He bought a liquidated bank and changed it’s name to Bank Mega. He then crossed over to the media industry with Trans TV and TV 7, which he later renamed Trans7.

Tanjung is the head of Yayasan Indonesia Forum that laid the framework for The Indonesia 2030 vision, in collaboration with a cross-sectoral committee. He is also the 15th richest person in Indonesia and devotes 50% of his time to social activities.

The TED talks

TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) is one of the most important talks in the world. It brings together a legion of smart people that are passionate and dedicated to their work to talk about what they have achieved and where they are heading to in each respective field. It has hosted the likes of Al Gore, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and other intelligent people that I could not mention one by one.

It hosts a wide range of speakers from various backgrounds not limited to the three that stands for TED itself. Speakers in the field of education, motivation, science and more are featured and it can be a great source for inspiration and knowledge. Each talk is condensed in a 20 minute session. This forces the speaker to condense his thoughts in a matter that the audience will receive a lot out of that short 20 minutes. This also prevents the viewer from getting bored. To me, watching this talk is like having a one on one interview with all of these great people that tell us about all their great professions. It is by far the best resource i have stumbled upon to on the internet.

To watch, just go to

http://www.ted.com
or

http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDtalksDirector

Does formal education limit entrepreneurship? part 1

Tags

bisnis, business, education, entrepeneur, entrepreneurship, formal, mindset, school, system

In the 20th century, the world is often surprised by shocking success stories of school dropouts. The most prominent names include Richard Branson, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, and the legendary Bill Gates. Though there are plenty cases of successful graduates, there is somewhat some validity behind the opinion that too much formal education can create an un-entrepreneurial mindset.

I have found my calling..??

In the last couple of days i’ve been bombarded by assignments, deadlines, quizzes and mid tests. sounds hectic? i don’t actually think so. see, I’ve been experiencing a sense of calmness despite the fact that i have not finished most of my assignments on time and have not studied to prepare for my exams. the truth is, i think that i finally found my calling. i feel that the reason I’ve become this calm is because the fact that i have finally found out what i wanted to do in life.

i wanna be a businessman. i really really wanna go through the honorable path of entrepreneurship. i have found my calling. so far i have been satisfied by the fact that i have two small ice cream counters and am a good student. now, i want MORE. i wanna have a big business, or at least start expanding one from humble beginnings. i wanna stop writing this post and do something useful.