(Poster Exhibition 2021 by CMACED Superior University
Chaudhary Muhammad Akram Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (CMACED) has set an extraordinary example of students’ success through innovative teaching and training pedagogies. For entrepreneurial revolution CMACED innovated and avant-garde the teaching methods. To teach entrepreneurship our 7 phased pedagogies include Entrepreneurial mindset in action, Idea Generation, Prototyping, Poster Exhibition, Entrepreneurial Forum, Business Model, Art of pitch. Poster Exhibition is one of these pedagogies which we recently arranged. Poster Exhibition 2021 is an activity of Entrepreneurial Teaching & Training Program (ETTP) particularly in it the students display their business model on a poster to reflect the entrepreneurial trainings on startup ideas and their implementation. Many universities organize such kind of events but what makes us special is its innovation and novelty and in it the students present their ideas in the visual form and our enthusiastic team of highly trained coaches help the students prepare their pitch so, that they can present their ideas professionally. Developing entrepreneurial outlook in Pakistan to build small and medium enterprises can be the key indicator to boost economic and social development. The key objective of organizing such exhibitions is to enhance the confidence of students and enable them to present their business ideas to the world. 70 venerated evaluators judged the creative start-up ideas and shared their valuable insights and feedbacks in order to strengthen student business ideas and make them successful entrepreneurs of the future. There were 16 highly esteemed instructors and 65 coaches who tought students the importance of pitch. Up till now there are 20plus Poster Exhibitions are exhibited in past 4 years from 2016 – 2021, out of which some were arranged virtually because of the pandemic. This is an amazing example of an innovative assessment that is being promoted under the umbrella of CMACED, Superior University Lahore.
In a span of mere 4 years, ETTP a trailblazing unit of CMACED, has incubated many startups who generated numbers of jobs. Entrepreneurship for the students and faculty is not the only thing CMACED is doing, it also putting efforts nationwide through its different projects to bring entrepreneurial revolution. Despite promising trends, Pakistan still has a long way to go before it can call itself a mature startup market. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEI) 2020, Pakistan stands at 109 out of 137 countries.
Dr. Humaira Qudsiya Yousuf (Assistant Director ETTP) always emboldens the students with the essence of entrepreneurship and asserts that entrepreneurship is the act of creating a business while building and scaling it to generate a profit but the more modern entrepreneurship is also about transforming the world by solving big problems and changing the mindsets.
As per the latest National Human Development Report by UNDP, Pakistan is going through a ‘youth bulge’ where more than two-thirds of the population comprises of young people. A country with very young demographics (more than 60 percent of the population under 30 years of age) the potential for entrepreneurship is immense. It all started with a seemingly off-hand remark about a persistent problem. Unemployment rates in Pakistan are high, so practically there is a need for our young nation to be entrepreneurs.
This astonishing showcasing was hosted virtually from March 16-18, 2021. More than 7 departments were presenting their startup ideas through 200 projects by approximately 1200 students. Not only the students showcased their startup ideas but 70 plus faculty members also mentored the mentioned startups to bring an entrepreneurial revolution.
The startup ideas were based on SDG’s, the Sustainable Development Goals or Global Goals which are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all”. Almost 70 venerated evaluators judged the creative start-up ideas and share their valuable insights and feedbacks in order to strengthen students’ business ideas and make them successful entrepreneurs of the future. There is a need to bring forward young entrepreneurial mindsets and polish them to be great and successful entrepreneurs of the future.
COVID-19 is the worst human tragedy to have struck the world in decades, affecting millions of people across the globe. The pandemic not only has serious implications for people’s health but is also significantly affecting businesses and the economy but still in those chronic times our units were working with the same boom, if we were not able to get this exhibition done on campus due to the lockdown so we came up with best possible fallback- Virtual Exhibitions.
Youth is the asset of our country and a majority of our youngsters are jobless because passed graduates and job ratio per year is not even nearly equal so there is a dire need for entrepreneurs and the youngsters who can innovate. The mission of Superior University is to make Pakistan economically and socially superior with the help of unique and exceptional activities for startups. The ecosystem is now thriving, more youth is considering entrepreneurship as a viable career option, and the investment landscape is structuring in the country. If we want to initiate the trend of innovation in our country than from the university levels, we have to haul the innovation in our teaching pedagogies, only then we can transfer this into the next generation and can innovate the Pakistan.