For four years now, the university has been implementing an educational trajectory in the field of “Entrepreneurship”. The development of this program in the early stages received resistance - and this is normal, because any innovation leads to a certain degree of resistance and misunderstanding. But the time and results of the work show that this is necessary for the modern generation, which is entering the labor market for the first time.

Accept this fact: our society will not develop without entrepreneurs who create jobs, pay taxes and change the culture of people. Entrepreneurship has an important role in creating a modern economy and culture.

In this regard, knowledge of the basics of entrepreneurship, generating ideas, managing yourself, your time and many other principles is very important for a modern student. This block of disciplines gives communication, teamwork skills, allows you to identify and demonstrate your leadership qualities, ability to speak and represent yourself, understanding the market and relationships in society.

Understanding that this is necessary may not come right away, perhaps in a few years, when you get tired of working for the state or for “uncle”, when you get cuts, when you realize that career advancement is a lot of work, requiring a high level of communication abilities, the presence of leadership qualities, constant work on oneself and the manifestation of these personality traits. Now is not the time for the silent, middle peasants, embarrassment, sullenness, apathy, expectation - you need to get into the very wave that you dream of! To do this, you need to be able to set priorities correctly, set the right goals, and use techniques that produce results. This is what we are trying to teach our students in the educational trajectory of "Entrepreneurship."

Under quarantine conditions, we, the team of teachers, like many others, had to change the format of work, but the work continued. All our classes began to take place in the format of Zoom-conferences.

Within the framework of the project “Ecosystem of student entrepreneurship” #EcosystemERG, ERG together with Almaty University Management held webinars on the topics “Idea Generation” and “Content Maker”. Students and teachers of our university became participants in these webinars, among them, teachers Saltanat Kabidollaevna Zhanuzakova, Elena Anatolyevna Ifutina, Aybek Rakhmettolaevich Soltangazinova, Zubirash Kalybekovna Smagulova, and students: Altynbek Serikov, Victoria Oanyuatyulu Danyutu, can be noted.

Now our students in teams are working on projects that will be presented during the session in the format of Zoom conferences, where members of the commission will be able to jointly evaluate the results of the work. Perhaps for some of the guys it will be just a performance to get an assessment, but for motivated students it will be gaining skills in developing a business model, a business plan, teamwork skills, drawing up a portrait of a buyer, conducting marketing research, understanding the Gantt chart, determining a break-even point, presentation skills, using SMART criteria for their goals, determining life priorities, empathy, identifying new qualities and abilities. We hope that this understanding will come, because the world has already changed ...

In the meantime, we invite startup managers, department heads and interested parties to take part in the open defense of our students' business ideas. See the protection schedule in the graph at the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1542daj1Ld_CxMnJNqPdj5T5RO6aoC53s/view?usp=sharing 

Good luck to everyone and a positive attitude!

InEU Press Service

Author: Zubirash Smagulova
Director of the Center for Enterprise Development and Innovation