THE International University of Management yesterday launched an initiative to stimulate students to identify entrepreneurship opportunities in their fields of study.
This will be done through the institution’s entrepreneurship educator programme unveiled in Windhoek yesterday.
The programme will see the International University of Management (IUM) staff members being trained through the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) programme.
The programme is being done in partnership with Mount Kenya University, and in collaboration with the Wadhwani Foundation.
The faculty members will go through facilitated sessions in three areas of entrepreneurship concepts – entrepreneurship pedagogy and delivery of entrepreneurship.
IUM founder David Namwandi said during the launch that the recent statistics by the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) show a high unemployment rate, with most of the affected being young people.
“We must kill this idea that unemployment in Africa is not news. Unemployment is a time bomb,” he stressed.
Namwandi, a former education minister, said it is meaningless to train people in school just for the sake of training them.
“It is against this background that this university embarked on the strategy of instilling entrepreneural skills in our students,” he noted.
He added that with the university’s partners, IUM wants to be a production factory of work and wealth creators.
“Creating a culture of entrepreneurship not only alleviates poverty and unemployment, but it positively affects the general business environment,” he stated.
Namwandi, a businessperson and farmer, owns IUM.
He said an increase in business activities will keep government accountable to improve various stages relevant to opening and operating a business such as registration, tax related matters, and access to funding.
“The development of an entrepreneurship and innovation culture at IUM is aimed at educating young people to become job creators and not job seekers,”
He said that IUM wants to create unique frameworks where students should be actively involved in entrepreneurship and innovation programmes and activities from day one to their last day at the university.
An annual fair will be held to celebrate and chart the way forward on entrepreneurship and innovation by all faculties at IUM.
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