GITA Project Lead Professor Neil Towers and Project Manager Nadine Sulkowski participated in the 3rd International Conference on Family Business and Entrepreneurship (ICFBE) in Bali, Indonesia, in April. The ICFBE brought together academics and entrepreneurs from across Indonesia and beyond. Amongst the themes explored were specific issues for family businesses, including financing and governance, cultural, family and gender dynamics and succession planning. Professor Neil Towers, Lead for Research at the University of Gloucestershire School of Business and Technology, talked about “Embedding Entrepreneurial Capacity Building in Higher Education Institutions for Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Creation– a Triangular Approach”. His presentation reported on the aims and progress of the Erasmus+ funded project “Growing Indonesia – a Triangular Approach (GITA)” led by the University of Gloucestershire. This was followed by a
presentation by Ms Rina Indiastuti from the Directorate
General of Learning and Student Affairs at Indonesia’s Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education who
talked about implications
and future strategies for entrepreneurship education in Indonesia. She highlighted that, with a population of 266 million and over 740,000 graduates in 2018
across Java alone, Indonesia needs to develop an entrepreneurial eco-system
that integrates regulatory frameworks, universities, as well as advisory and
funding support systems. She asserted, this would require the nurturing of an
entrepreneurial mindset amongst students and staff within universities through
targeted learning and learning and teaching, research, co-curricular and
cross-faculty activities and praised the GITA approach for addressing exactly
that need. The plenary session was moderated by Nadine Sulkowski,
International Development Lead at the University of Gloucestershire School of
Business and Technology, whilst the ICFBE conference was hosted by GITA Consortium partner President
University based in Jakarta.
