Youth must focus on entrepreneurship

Experts say not everybody can get a dream job after graduation


Our Correspondent November 13, 2012

KARACHI: With a slow growth in job market and a sharp increase in fresh graduates coming out of colleges and universities, Pakistani youth should focus on entrepreneurship if they want to keep up with modern challenges, say experts on entrepreneurship.

They were speaking to over 35 students from different universities of Karachi, entrepreneurs and university teachers, who had gathered here on Monday for an interactive session to discuss why Pakistan was lagging behind in producing entrepreneurs compared to regional countries.

The event was organised by the Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), a non-profit affiliate of the US Chamber of Commerce, and KauffMan – a US-based entrepreneurship foundation. Both organisations are celebrating the global entrepreneurship week in Pakistan by organising events in different cities.

“Entrepreneurship is an attitude and one must nurture the desire of entrepreneurship,” said Moin Fudda, Country Director of CIPE.

“Young Pakistani graduates have to think of entrepreneurship because not everybody can get a dream job after graduation. At least, our graduate should give a thought to entrepreneurship as they give time to prepare themselves for the job market,” he added.

Speakers said most of the graduates look for jobs in multinationals without realising that they can become successful entrepreneurs in their lives. While multinational jobs can give extraordinary rewards, they can also kill entrepreneurial mind in the very beginning of one’s career.

Entrepreneurs always break mental barriers and avoid tunnel view that most people see while on job. They always think ahead of others and take risks. An entrepreneur goes according to his or her own map unlike the map given by the company as annual targets to achieve, an entrepreneur said.

Some of the participating students were already running their small businesses, but they were confused how they could expand their businesses in present security conditions of the country.

“Despite security concerns, Pakistan is still one of the best countries to start business because its population is growing and the market is highly unsaturated unlike saturated markets of industrialised countries,” a speaker said.

The participating students were from a variety of disciplines like business, liberal arts and engineering. The students were from Karachi University, Institute of Business Administration (IBA), PAF KIET, Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Dawood College of Engineering, Bahria University, Mohammad Ali Jinnah University and NED.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 13th, 2012.

 

COMMENTS (3)

Asad Shairani | 11 years ago | Reply

Entrepreneurship cannot thrive in an environment as unsafe and unfriendly for business as ours. Couple that with the societal burden (of earning bread) on the new graduate and you have lots of people looking for jobs and not willing to take a risk with trying something new. Not to mention that most organizations hire people with job experience and the experience of running a small business is hardly valued.

Wasio Ali Khan Abbasi | 11 years ago | Reply It was a great session and very informative. Unfortunately I was the only one from SZABIST and probably that's why institute's name has not been mentioned in this article. More such sessions on Entrepreneurship should take place, the experience and knowledge will be very valuable for students especially those who are in their final year of studies.
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