Essay 16 : DELTA Essay Writing Competition
Engineering Entrepreneurship in Nepal
by Rupesh Choudhary, BCE, ERC (Alumni)
As an Engineer you have one choice now: “Either make your dreams come true or you will be hired to make someone else’s dream come true.” If you chose to make your dreams come true, step forward to become a changemaker. Entrepreneurs see opportunity in a problem. It could be any type of problem that you see in your everyday lives. The harder the problem becomes, the better the opportunity for someone who can solve it. The larger the problem, the bigger the opportunity.
Entrepreneurship is the method of designing, launching and running a new business. Entrepreneurship cuts across every sector of human life including the field of engineering, engineering entrepreneurship (Eng-preneur) is the process of harnessing the business opportunities in engineering and turning it into profitable commercially viable innovation. There are numerous innovations and business ideas in engineering that can create wealth.
Civil engineering is an interesting branch of engineering that deals with the design, construction, building of layouts and other types of construction. Entrepreneurs in civil engineering can explore various entrepreneurial opportunities in blocks and bricks manufacturing, construction equipment rental business, borehole drilling business and lawn care services. For example, we all want to live in a well-made house. However, we have serious building quality problems and our country is earthquake-prone. This is a great business with a huge market as everyone can benefit from a civil engineer’s excellent standards. If we can solve Nepal’s haphazard construction industry, with our business, we could be a billionaire. Plus, we would give service to millions and be thanked for the service we give.
There are many examples of some famous entrepreneurs who were civil engineers, who have looked at a problem as an opportunity, built great businesses and changed the world and our lives. We can look at how Bijay Rajbhandari and fellow engineers have transformed CE constructions into a quality brand known for its quality and timely delivery of its projects within the country and overseas as well. Being a mountainous country and earthquake-prone country, Nepal always welcomes technologies for transportation and structure. A determined civil engineer entrepreneur can always work on these problems and difficulties of our country.
Nepal is a developing country. Civil engineering entrepreneurship is somewhat like a myth to many of the civil engineers. Political instability has been a major issue for us. Also, the problems that come with being a civil engineer looking to develop a startup company are numerous. The limitations for an entrepreneurial civil engineer can be attributed to the cult of joining the society of engineers which requires several years of experience. Only after being accepted into the cult can one be recognized as an engineer. However, it is understandable that the impact of the decisions of an engineer might affect the broader society.
The shortcoming of this lack of trust usually results in the limited global impacts been made by civil engineering entrepreneurs except for humanitarian social work. This ideology has to change; being a civil engineer one should not limit his potential as a changemaker.
