University of Ciputra Entrepreneurship Center (UCEC), the official GEW host organization in Indonesia, built a strong foundation for GEW 2014 with several national and regional initiatives that took place throughout the year. Examples include the International Conference on Entrepreneurship Education (ICONEE 2014) at Ciputra University Surabaya in August followed by a roundtable on entrepreneurship research and education in collaboration with the Korean Entrepreneurship Foundation, the official GEW host in Korea.
UCEC is also the host of Get in the Ring 2014, the national and Asia Pacific Regional Investment Battle in collaboration with Global Entrepreneurship Program Indonesia (GEPI). After racing through the local and regional finals, Indonesia's fishtech startup eFishery won the global Get in the Ring finals in Rotterdam last week, further proving the huge potential of Indonesian startups. eFishery is a smart aqualife feeding system for commercial aquaculture that detects the fish’s appetite through motion sensors and feeds it automatically. The startup has also created software to allow fish farmers to see the feeding activities in real-time on their phones, and control the system if needed.
GEW Indonesia had an early start in the second week of November with a workshop on scientific writing and research on entrepreneurship in Surabaya as a follow-up to the International Conference on Entrepreneurship and Business Management held in Penang, Malaysia in collaboration with the Tarumanagara University and National Creativity Network, USA.
On November 20, the Deputy Chief of Mission of the United States of America, Kristen Bauerhosted a reception in honor of Global Entrepreneurship Week Indonesia to initiate a sustainable dialogue between the stakeholders. More than a hundred people including senior politicians and policy makers, renowned educators and investors as well as public figures attended the event. Dane Stangler, vice president of research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation and GEW Global Board Member Jeff Hoffman also attended together with the GEW Global team. The US Embassy in Jakarta plans to facilitate the establishment of focus group discussion to work on the implementation strategies to improve the outcome of Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) as well as Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEI) in the years to come.
On November 21, the GEW Indonesia Summit 2014 took place at the Ciputra Artpreneur Theater Jakarta with the attendance of over 1,300 members of the startup community, including stakeholders from government, academics, business community, NGOs as well as students and aspiring entrepreneurs. Some of the organizations that contributed to GEW Indonesia and this summit include GEPI, Endeavor Indonesia, #StartupLokal, Freelancer, USAID, Bloomberg Indonesia, Uber, Sinar Foundation and Bank Central Asia.
The Summit explored several important topics:
- How policymakers can stimulate the growth of Indonesian startups through policies that are conducive and stimulating
- How academicians can put together an entrepreneurship-based curriculum in schools and universities throughout Indonesia
- How businesses and corporations can contribute to developing a more robust business community with the ongoing preparations for a free trade zone in ASEAN by 2015.
After welcoming remarks by Candra Ciputra, CEO of Ciputra Group, Basuki Tjahaja Poernama, the newly appointed Governor of DKI Jakarta called for further collaboration among the government and ecosystem players in Indonesia emphasizing the role of entrepreneurship in Indonesia’s future.
The keynote speakers of the summit, Stangler, shared findings of Kauffman Foundation’s and its partners’ research on methods of creating more and more successful entrepreneurs and Hoffman shared his strategy for scaling up startups. Sofjan Djalil, the state-coordinating minister for economics shared the Ministry’s roadmap towards a mature Indonesian entrepreneurship ecosystem.
The afternoon sessions consisted of high-energy Talk-A-Thon talks by prominent Indonesian entrepreneurs including Helma Kusuma (Freelancer), Rama Mamuaya (DailySocial) and Endeavor entrepreneurs.
During the GEW Indonesia Summit 2014 Ir. Ciputra, chairman of Ciputra Group and Ivan Sandjaja, director of Ciputra Incubator and Accelerator and GEW Indonesia Coordinator officially launched Startup Indonesia and Ciputra-GEPI incubator CGI. Through Startup Indonesia, the startup community in Indonesia will be able to access information needed to ensure the sustainability and profitability of their ventures, such as finding business partners or searching for potential investors or access to funding or simply expanding their targeted network.
One of the highlights of the GEW Indonesia was a follow up discussion on future policy related to entrepreneurs for Indonesia with Stangler and Hoffman and various government entities mediated by the governor of the Central Bank of Indonesia. Harun Hajadi of Ciputra Group and the international speakers of the summit also organized a press conference to highlight the role of media in sharing key success stories related to local entrepreneurs with the public.
Hoffman had an “Entrepreneurs’ Day” with selected entrepreneurs on November 21 providing them with mentorship on some of their challenges. Workshops for entrepreneurs continued throughout the last weekend at Ciputra-GEPI incubator.
According to a recently introduced GEI Index, opportunity perception in Indonesia has gained significant ground, although internationalization, human and risk capital, product innovation and technology absorption are flagged up as some of the areas the country is still lagging behind. Indonesia’s rank as 120 out of 130 countries indicates that this is just the start of a long journey for the entrepreneurship ecosystem in this country to fulfill its potential.
Image souce: Vemale