Technopreneurship (1st Meeting)

On the first day of our meeting with our beloved facilitator, We immediately had a short assessment to test how good we are in following some simple and tricky instructions from our facilitator, then later on we introduced ourselves to him and in front of our classmates. Each one of us tells our personal expectations for our subject Technopreneurship, as well as our expectations from our facilitator. It’s quite intimidating and frightening to be honest standing and talking in front of our facilitator because he is well known for his strict and high standard way of teaching that made our college Institute of Computing capable of producing excellent graduate students. My expectation for our subject is simple and it will help me build my confidence in talking and facing towards other people, to generate fresh and new ideas that is profitable and of course to become an effective practitioner of Technopreneurship and Information Technology. To help me reach these goals is what I’m expecting from our facilitator. After we finished introducing ourselves, Sir told us some important things that we need to keep in ours minds in order to pass this subject and the things that we should expect from him and from the subject. At the end he gave us a pep talk to boost our confidence and encouraged us to do well and to be more active in joining local and national business plan competitions like “Philippine Emerging Startups Open (PESO)”, “Smart Sweep” and other well-known competitions to pass this subject. 

In our next meeting we had our first formal discussion about Technopreneurship but before that we had an activity wherein our facilitator showed us nine dots forming a square shape and we were asked to connect those nine dots in just four strokes without lifting our hands. Personally I find this activity difficult because I tried my very best to connect those dots but I still didn’t get it, but luckily one of my classmate got it and showed us how he gets it. Our facilitator told us that this activity has something to do with Technopreneurship, he said to become a successful individual in the field of Technopreneurship you have to think outside the box. It means you need to be more creative in creating and generating new and fresh ideas in order to succeed in this field. After that our facilitator told us his story on how he gathered high-profiled personnel in different institution here in davao and came up with the idea of spreading and sharing this precious knowledge (Technopreneurship) to others in the whole Mindanao.  

When we hear the word Technopreneurship the first thing that comes in our minds is Entrepreneurship because they almost sound similar. Technopreneurship and Entrepreneurship actually jives together when we talk about things like business plans, entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurial aspects. There is a strong connection between Technological development, Innovations and entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship forms the sub structure upon which science and technology are built. As we understand it, Technopreneurship is, by a large part, still Entrepreneurship. The difference is that Technopreneurship is either involved in delivering an innovative hi-tech product makes use of hi-tech in an innovative way to deliver its product to the consumer. Technopreneurship is not a product but a process of synthesis in engineering the future of a person, an organization, a nation and the world. Strategic directions or decision-making processes are becoming more demanding and complex. This requires universities, and in site professional development programs and training to produce strategic thinkers who will have skills to succeed in a rapidly changing global environment. Our facilitator talks about the right way of mind setting. He explained the usual and default mindsets that most of our parents have which is the mindset of sending their children to school to have good grades and gain knowledge and land in a high-paying job which is called the “Employment Mindset”. In contrast to that mindset, I learned that there is an Alternative mindset called the “Technopreneur Mindset” wherein instead of dreaming of having or finding a high-paying job when you earned your degree, you are the one who is creating and offering a job. In other words instead of becoming an employee you are the employer or should I say you are the Boss. And you can only achieve it by utilizing the knowledge you acquired, your skills, talent, creativity and passion to innovate and create new things by the use technology. Our facilitator also emphasized that Davao City is the greatest producers of best graduates here in Mindanao in the field of ICT but unfortunately these best individuals that Davao City have are being lured by other cities like Cebu and Manila by offering them an attractive and high compensations, leaving all the average and low experienced graduates here in Davao. It is quite alarming because cities like Cebu City and Manila is progressing in terms of technology compare here in Davao and it is because of some our best IT Professionals. And sadly nowadays, mostly of ICT courses graduates finds it hard to land on a job most especially those fresh graduates because most IT companies hires best and experienced individuals which is quite not fair for fresh graduates who doesn’t acquired any job experience yet in their field. We also tackled and learned about the SEED Model which stands for Self-Mastery, Environment-Mastery, Enterprise-Mastery and the Development. This Model aims to help anyone to become a better technopreneurs in the field of Technopreneurship. Self-Mastery, simply talks about knowing oneself like knowing what you want and what you do not want. It is a process of identifying your strengths and weaknesses and using these in weaknesses as your strength to deal with problems. A self-mastered person does not need a high Intelligence Quotient (IQ) but it does require a high level of Emotional Quotient (EQ) and Adversity Quotient (AQ). Environment-Mastery, means knowing the environment and the industry you are in. An Environment-Mastered person treats every problem as an opportunity to find solution to deal with a certain problem. Enterprise-Mastery, pertains to the knowledge of the different enterprise disciplines such as creating the business, marketing management, operations management, financial management, risk management. An enterprise-mastered person understands and integrates the functions of management (It involves marketing, human resource, operations, and finance), understands and integrates the process of management (It involves the planning, organizing, directing, and controlling process), leads and inspires rather than manage. And the last phase of the SEED Model is the Development, It is now the time of making your business plan that covers the writing, presenting and depending part of your business plan and also adding refinements to your business plan. 

There is also what we call the Macro and the Micro Strategy in Technopreneurship ecosystem. When we talk about Macro Strategy, it is a strategy in Technopreneurship that targets a bigger and wider range like Domestic and International IT Market, IT-Enabled Hotels and Tourist Destinations, IT-Friendly Real Estate Environment, Technology Business Incubators,Venture Capitalists and Funding Institutions, IT Business Incentives and Legal Framework, IT Parks and Buildings, Domestic and International IT Market, Domestic and International Locators, Business Enterprises and Gov’t Agencies and etc. while Micro Strategy focuses only on a school based Technnopreneurship ecosystem. It involves the Curriculum components which helps students from first year to third year generate ideas, use their creativity and innovation, the next stage is the Events components. In this stage the ideas generated by the students is now ready to compete in a local and national competitions like (PESO) Philippine Emerging Startups Open and the last stage is the Infrastructure Components, wherein the ideas generated are ready to be deploy in the real industry. Today Davao is considered as the IT hub of Mindanao and possibly considered as the capital IT hub of the Philippines in the near future according to BIMP-EAGA, Asia. It becomes the source and home of highly competent & efficient IT professionals with sound social & ethical standards. Schools in Davao like University of Southeastern Philippines (USeP) become more renowned worldwide for producing such graduates. And it keeps on providing high quality of education that makes its student’s globally competitive.

To sum up my reflection for our first meeting in the Technopreneurship class. I am very excited and I am looking forward to gain knowledge in Technopreneurship to gear me up in facing and entering in the real industry and to become an effective practitioner of Technopreneurship and Information Technology. I am also grateful that Institute of Computing (IC) offered Technopreneurship as a course subject in BSIT course because I got the chance to acquire and absorb all the knowledge that this subject has to offer. And I am also hoping that all activities that our facilitator has given to us will help me gain confidence in sharing my fresh and new ideas not just in our room but hopefully in a wider audience. It truly inspired me to become a successful technopreneur in the future to not just to make money out of problems but also provide valuable ideas and solution that will help the communities to become a better one.