Essay 15 : DELTA Essay Writing Competition
Engineering Entrepreneurship in Nepal
by Rahul Rajbanshi
BCE 3rd semester, IOE PURWANCHAL CAMPUS
Entrepreneurship is an art or science of innovation, introduction or creation of something new and dealing with business activities for generating profits and revenues. It involves creativity, knowledge and skills and helps in creating employment opportunities along with the development of new ideas, designs and products. Engineering entrepreneurship deals with the design, manufacture and development of new products by the proper mobilization of resources, modern science and technology with the aim of earning profits and maintaining global economic problems. It also deals with the advances in communication, health, education, manufacturing and sustainable development.
Students should learn to use their skills to become more innovative and entrepreneurial. In order to be a good entrepreneur, one should be fully devoted to work with discipline, co-ordination, time and effort. The most defining characteristic of an entrepreneur is the ability to act on opportunities, learning from failures, and solving problems with good technical, business and communition skills. Students should dare in attempting special tasks, engage in global competitiveness, learn to capture the opportunity as well as challenges to deal with the problems and enhance their quality of life.
Entrepreneurship education plays a significant role to understand and contribute about the business dealings and activities. It gives experience and knowledge about design, manufacture, technology, market and business analysis specifically for the fresh engineers. They can utilize their valuable time to become successful innovators. Moreover, it teaches engineering students the knowledge of handling tools, personality development, leaderships, teamworks and identification of the actual problems, responsibilities and opportunities and bring them to the life.
Entrepreneurship education is regarded as the fast growing subject in undergraduate education. In recent decades, entrepreneurial process has become as a key element of the country’s future success and global economy development. The National Science Foundation has also invested in entrepreneurship and innovation with programs such as Innovation Corps(I-Corps), which prepares scientists and engineers to consider broader opportunities for their technology and researches.
In most of the developed countries, various researches indicates the 90% of jobs are created by entrepreneurs. It is rare in case of developing countries like Nepal. However, there is a good possibility for the development of engineering entrepreneurship in Nepal. Nepal is rich in natural resources and has high production of raw materials. Proper mobilization of such materials can be very effective to carryout entrepreneurial activities. There are several possible ventures likely to succeed in Nepal. Shankar Uprety’s Hamro Patro is already a super success. Similarly, online marketing such as Daraz, Sastodeal, Hamrobazzar etc. are gaining their popularity. Old traditional agricultural tools has been replaced by the modern ones.
As Nepal is a developing country, it has a higher possibility of civil engineering entrepreneurship. Civil engineers can start their businesses in various civil engineering related fields such as design, construction and maintenance of environment and so on. Civil engineering mainly focuses on infrastructural development which helps in maintaining sustainable and economic development of the country. It also includes structural, irrigation, transportation, water resources, hydraulic and construction engineering and environmental engineering. Civil engineers not just focus on profits and revenues but also take account of several factors just to ensure that the final products are normally expected to last for several years and withstand many environmental challenges. Thus, they consider every factors for the best design so that the obtained result lasts for a longer period of time withstanding different environmental challenges.
There are various challenges that an entrepreneur will have to face. The most important thing is cash flow management, employee selection, selection of proper location by an entrepreneur. Time management is the next important issue that an entrepreneur should always focus on. Other challenges include lack of proper guidance, delegation of authority, marketing strategy, generation of capital, plannings and modelling, skilled human resources and modern science and technology. Nepal is a country with poor science and technology lacking modern equipments with poor security, weak economy, political instability,regional disparity etc. Moreover, most of the people depend upon old and traditional agricultural tools due to lack of proper knowlege of modern equipments and technology. Although we have adequate resources and raw materials, there is a lack of skilled manpower and technology to utilize them efficiently.
Entrepreneurship is not only required for business activities and earning profits but also plays an important role in the country’s economic prosperity. It contributes in generation of national incomes, balances regional development, makes use of available resources, brings improvements in living standard and develops the feeling of economic independence.
Hence, students should learn to become more innovative starting their business from small one with constant and steady effort, maintaining proper attitude, leadership and co-ordination. Working in teams and focusing on learning and early development is the best way to start any business rather than going for profits initially.
