Universitas Gadjah Mada
Faculty of Economics and Business

Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) UGM in partnership with Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) launches their program 'BRI Entrepreneurial People'. The signing of a memorandum is made by the Director of Research and Training of Economics and Business (P2EB), Faculty of Economics and Business Universitas Gadjah Mada, Dr. Anggito Abimanyu and the Chairman BRI Yogyakarta Regional, Eko Wahyu Andriastono, on Tuesday (3/4)at Auditorium Pertamina Tower FEB UGM. Director of UMKM (micro small medium enterprises) BRI, Djarot Kusumayakti also presents in the occasion.

Director of P2EB FEB UGM, Dr. Anggito Abimanyu delivers this program designed to create the best UGM entrepreneurial with strong social minded, innovative, and competitive. The program is also targeted to attract UGM students to be innovative entrepreneurs.

"The program is intended to encourage the best UGM students to become entrepreneurs who can  create new employments," he said.

Dr. Abimanyu adds, this program is aimed to build a new paradigm for outstanding students to become entrepreneurs. "these days entrepreneurship is considered as job which is because of ‘accident’, lived with whom are not welcome in the empolyment world due to the lack of GPA. Hence, we should change the entrepreneurship world with highly achieved graduates for it is the foundation of the nation's economy," he explained.

"This program does not only provides an opportunity for students to become entrepreneurs," said Dr. Abimanyu. For the business it is expected to encourage the birth of new products that are innovative and creative, to improve the quality of market competition, and to strengthen the regional economy. As for FEB UGM, it is expected to create graduates who grow to be job creators. And for BRI will strengthen its image as the bank supporting small and medium business units.

BRI Entrepreneurial People's Program is for UGM alumni who graduate last three years and final year students when register. Having minimum GPA of at least 3.00 is a must. "There are three selection steps in this program; the selection made by FEB, product development research using community development funds from BRI, and business starting up by submitting the bankable proposal for further partnership with BRI," said Dr. Abimanyu.

He said that in one year it is targeted to form 10 groups of entrepreneurs. Within five years it will generate 50 groups of entrepreneurs who are expected to successfully manage their business. "Each group will receive a grant of 50 million rupiahs for research and product development with the incentives of three million per month.

Accroding the Director of Small and Medium Business Units BRI, Djarot Kusumayekti, said that 99.98 percent of business people in Indonesia are engaged in the field of entrepreneurship and Small and Medium Business Units. They absorb up to 91.8 million people to work with.

"What is interesting here is the dominance of UMKM is still so great. On the other labors absorbed is as well large and serves to reduce the state burden for it can create employments. In this case the entrepreneur is positioned as a locomotive to lift up the country," he said.

Similar to Dr. Abimanyu, Mr. Kusumayekti said that today being entrepreneurs are not designed early in the young age or even prepared, but they are doing it as if they are forced to become. With the release of this program it is expected to give birth to innovative and competitive entrepreneurs.

"The country will be safe if it has entrepreneurial sector more than 2%, while the number of Indonesian entrepreneurs are still less than 1% that cause huge burden to the nation. The hopes are that this program can generate the seeds of outstanding entrepreneurs who are able to lift up nation burden", he hoped.

The registration of BRI Entrepreneurial People's program will be opened in May 2012. The participants are required to submit executive summary including complete business plan. The final round will be in July and followed by a presentation to investors in August 2012. The announcement  of winners will be released at Faculty Anniversary on September 2012.

Sources: ika/ugm