(Poster Exhibition 2022 by CMACED Superior University
Author: Fajar Shakeel
Chaudhary Muhammad Akram Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (CMACED) has set an extraordinary example of students’ success through innovative teaching and training pedagogies. For the entrepreneurial revolution, CMACED innovated with avant-garde teaching methods. The seven phased pedagogies that we use to teach entrepreneurship include Entrepreneurial mindset in action, Idea Generation, Prototyping, Poster Exhibition, Entrepreneurial Forum, Business Model, and Art of the pitch. Poster Exhibition is one of these pedagogies which we arrange each year.
Poster Exhibition 2022 is an Entrepreneurial Teaching & Training Program (ETTP). In particular, the students display their business model on a poster to reflect the entrepreneurial training on startup ideas and their implementation. Many universities organize such events, but what makes us unique is our innovation and novelty. The students present their ideas in visual form, and our enthusiastic team of highly trained coaches helps the students prepare their pitches to offer their ideas professionally. Developing an entrepreneurial outlook in Pakistan to build small and medium enterprises can be the key indicator to boosting economic and social development.
The key objective of organizing such exhibitions is to enhance students’ confidence and enable them to present their business ideas to the world. Fifty venerated evaluators judged the creative startup ideas and shared their valuable insights and feedback to strengthen student business ideas and make them successful future entrepreneurs. There were 32 highly esteemed instructors and 113 coaches who taught students about the importance of pitch. Twenty plus poster exhibitions have been displayed in the four years from 2016–to 2022, some of them were arranged virtually because of the pandemic, and the rest were on campus. It is a fantastic example of an innovative assessment promoted under the umbrella of CMACED, Superior University Lahore.
ETTP, a trailblazing unit of CMACED, has incubated many startups that generated jobs in four years. Entrepreneurship for the students and faculty is not the only thing CMACED is doing, and it is also putting efforts nationwide through its different projects to bring entrepreneurial revolution. Despite promising trends, Pakistan still has a long way to go before calling itself a mature startup market. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEI) 2020, Pakistan ranks 109 out of 137 countries.
Dr. Humaira Qudsiya Yousuf (Assistant Director ETTP) always encourages the students with the essence of entrepreneurship and asserts that entrepreneurship is creating a business while building and scaling it to generate a profit. Still, the more modern entrepreneurship is also about transforming the world by solving big problems and changing mindsets.
As per UNDP’s latest National Human Development Report, Pakistan is going through a ‘youth bulge’ where more than two-thirds of the population comprises young people. In a country with very young demographics (more than 60 percent of the population is 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 21st – to 29th, 2022. More than 11 faculties presented their startup ideas through 300+ projects by approximately 2200 students. Not only did the students showcase their startup ideas, but 100 plus faculty members also mentored the mentioned startups to bring an entrepreneurial revolution.
The startup ideas are based on SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals or Global Goals, a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a “blueprint for achieving a better and more sustainable future for all.” Almost 70 venerated evaluators judged the creative startup ideas and shared their valuable insights and feedback to strengthen students’ business ideas and make them successful future entrepreneurs. There is a need to bring forward young entrepreneurial mindsets and polish them into great and prosperous future entrepreneurs.
Youth is an asset to our country. A majority of our youngsters are jobless because passed graduates and job ratios per year are not even nearly equal, so there is a dire need for entrepreneurs and youngsters who can innovate. The mission of Superior University is to make Pakistan economically and socially superior with the help of special activities for startups. The ecosystem is thriving, more youth are 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, then from the university levels, we have to haul the creation in our teaching pedagogies; only then can we transfer this to the next generation and innovate Pakistan.