...Indiepreneurs

...MOHE organized a forum on strategic approaches in transforming higher education financing in malaysia yesterday...I was one of the invited speakers...given a topic on way forward of financing public universities in malaysia...I was actually a bit reluctant to take up the assignment when contacted by the secretariat last week...was in beijing at the time and don't think that I'm gonna have enough time to make good preparation for the event...but it was a rare opportunity...opportunity to speak up my mind...as I think MOHE can do better in its approach...so I just said yes and think about preparation later...if I don't have the time then I'll just speak up from my heart...I have done that many times before...the program started early in the morning and I was the first speaker...never easy being a first speaker...managed to prepare only few slides the night before so my speech was a bit spontaneous...I missed few important points but overall I think I have said what I wanna say...it was a simple speech which I divided into 4 categories...understanding the sources of income...understanding the expenses...understanding the costs of activities, products and services...and finally about entrepreneurial university, as a public university how far should one go...the first 3 are crucial because without a solid undertanding of the income, expenses and costs, one cannot plan...a sound financial management system must be there...which is a problem in most public universities...fix that first and then talk about the rest...actually many studies have been conducted and many approaches have been suggested but none are working...because the fundamental is not fixed...I also suggested few critical suggestions...received mixed reactions which are expected and which I don't really care...but one interesting that I wanna share is...during the Q&A session, one participant, a senior guy whom I know quite well, talked about theories and norms at government agencies...so he said why change and its gonna be difficult even if we wanna change...my answer is simple...theory(ies) is/are there for us to challenge, and systems are there for us to break if we wanna move to next level...be independent (indie)...look beyond the norms...that's what successful businesses do, airasia for example...and that's what few groups of youngsters do...they called themselves indiepreneurs...interesting concept huh...and that's what professors should do...instead of teaching theories...should together with students challenge the theory...and innovate...I think university should look beyond research...as research only transforms ideas into knowledge but innovation transforms knowledge into new products and/processes...otherwise we'll remain irrelevant in the eyes of the industry people...nite guys
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