BADULLA - While there are various constraints in Sri Lanka’s educated youth venturing to be entrepreneurs of their own and to be part of the economic development of the country, there is a one success story about helping would-be entrepreneurs.
View of the University - Pix by Athula Devapriya |
The Uva Wellassa University (UWU) established in 2004 is an entrepreneurial university and focused to become a centre of excellence for value addition to national resources by 2015.
A team from the Business Times (BT) this week met Dr Chandra Imbuldeniya, UWU Vice Chancellor, in his office at the salubrious university complex in Badulla this week where while elaborating the achievements of the students through science and technology with a heavy bias towards entrepreneurship, reiterated that the major constraint for anyone to become an entrepreneur is the difficulty of obtaining the initial capital to take the venture off the ground.
Some in the first batch of graduands awaiting certificates and the convocation who completed their 4 year degree course in various disciplines numbering 160, have been approached by various organizations to offer them employment or to obtain the ownership of their treasured achievements. Some of these achievements are already in the market and enjoy good business.
UWU supports their graduates to become entrepreneurs rather than they becoming employees. They would be helped to obtain Intellectual Property rights and patents where appropriate and ensure these graduates obtain their share of benefits for their achievements.
As in all cases, what Dr Imbuldeniya suggests is that the government must support these budding entrepreneurs and also other financial institutions should formulate a scheme to put these young entrepreneurs on their feet.
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| Dr. Chandra Imbuldeniya |
The line-up of some of the achievements that have received acclaim are the real time viscosity meter; chocolate syrup stirred yoghurt; low cost optical 3-D scanner; ready to cook hard paneer cheese; carbon fuel cells for power generation; meter that reduces electricity consumption and a robot for office work.
Among those achievers, there was Ms Thilini Fernando, in her fourth year at UWU, holding a biscuit tin tightly close to her heart unnoticed.. When the BT team probed, she was delighted to reveal what is inside that tiny box. She did not realize that in it lies a world class achievement which if properly dealt with would reach the top of the world!
It is a magnificent achievement dealing with the all important rice flour. With the earlier assistance she has obtained from Dr B M K S Thilakaratne of the Institute of Post Harvest Technology, Anuradhapura and with the research and able assistance from the staff at UWU, she has produced a biscuit with rice flour combined with banana blossom (flower – Kehel Muwa).
The biscuit is rich in fibre content as high as 14%. In some other branded biscuits the fibre content is at 6.2%. The texture and colour are identical to other branded biscuits and the product has been subjected to a sensory test by an independent group of persons and its taste has been rated as on par with other biscuits.
Thilini Fernando |
Though pride emanated in her eyes when she demonstrated her achievement, by touching them, sorting them out and picking them up to show, she did not visualize that she could ride on top of the world, as an umpteen number of research has been done on rice flour, to make bread out of it and nowhere a complete success.
In an extensive survey carried out by Business Times (Business Times on Sunday July 25, 2010) it was reported that there is still an inability to make solid kind of food like bread out of rice flour. Thus Ms Fernando’s achievement out-beats this finding as the biscuit produced by her is solid and convenient in handling and portable.
The product also shows potential of having it with different flavours like that of Soya products, which then solves the palatability issue too. What is urgently therefore needed is to help her to push the product through all the bureaucratic barriers and other usual red tape.
The greatest danger and fear is that before she launches this useful product to the market, another might pick up the formula by some means or other and launch the product before her, which Sri Lankans are amply capable of.
At the university, the academic staff is headed by Dr G Chandrasena, Dean, Faculty of Animal Science and Export Agriculture, Dr G Sivagurunathan, Dean, Faculty of Management and Dr S C Jayamanne, Dean, Faculty of Science and Technology. There are 11 degree courses under these three faculties.
Dr Imbuldeniya said that the government in 2004 wanted to set up a university in Badulla and a university that is ridden with the turbulence that other universities are undergoing.
He said that the UWU operates under a strict code of discipline and violators of the code would be punishable with a jail sentence.
His concept is a new value proposition and it is a new learning and growing foundation. It’s vision being value addition to the natural resources to become a centre of excellence.
Dr Imbuldeniya said that though he became the VC of this university, in his earlier career he has held the position of CEO of a number of companies and was one time President, National Chamber of Commerce.
This university operates on a basis of sharing and is not tied up to a system like other universities in the country as the faculty staff is not confined to their own faculty but work with others according to the requirements. In the curriculum essential skills are incorporated and there is continuous training in English.
Quantitative reasoning, Sinhala students learning Tamil and Tamil students learning is part of the curriculum. UWU has introduced many novel methods and schemes such as helping small and medium enterprises and to have management development programmes for companies like banks in this region.
The student capacity now stands at 1,700 and plans are afoot to increase it to 6,000 in due course.
Dr Imbuldeniya said that the entrepreneurial strategy base is to provide employable graduates with exceptional skills and competence. He said that the UWU concept has become a model and several foreign universities want to create that model with Dr Imbuldeniya being invited to some of those universities to elaborate on the concept. Further, one foreign university has agreed to set up a branch on this new concept. |
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