Over the past few years, the Office of the Vocational Education Commission (OVEC) has made strong efforts to ensure that its graduates obtain necessary skills and competency to build their own businesses upon their graduation.
In this regard, OVEC has launched a project called “Entrepreneurship Incubator,” with strong determination to incubate its students to become successful entrepreneurs. This week (July 16-21, 2018), 500 young entrepreneurs from OVEC incubators across the country are being trained to sharpen their business minds and enhance a set of skills for their start-up initiatives.
This year, nearly 300 business plans were submitted ranging from agricultural products, homemade meals, handcrafts and tour companies to services on online platforms. Many students and their advisors have embraced local wisdom and valuable local materials in their product development, making their businesses unique and encapsulating the awareness of conservation through innovation. One hundred business plans were finally chosen based on their potential, business model, product innovation and marketing plans. Each team is comprised of five student members and one advisor. The selected teams are given intensive training and workshops on marketing strategy, financial literacy, creating effective business plans as well as best practices from successful business entrepreneurs.
“We’re trying our best to fill missing gaps for these start-up initiatives and equip these young minds with an adequate set of skills for the real business world,” said Advisor for Vocational Education Standards (Business & Hospitality) Mrs. Jerdruedee Chinvaroj.
On the last day, each team will be given an opportunity to pitch their modified business plan to the committee, which consists of experts, academics, entrepreneurs and bankers. Twenty teams will be chosen to proceed to the final round and be trained in an incubating camp around August and showcase their businesses in December 2018. Three winning teams will be awarded with trophies and a study visit to explore success stories in Singapore.
There are currently 416 entrepreneurship incubators nationwide, operating under public vocational colleges and institutes. Over 12,000 students are being trained each year and nearly 1,000 new SMEs emerge from these incubators. OVEC is consistently providing on-going support to every incubator to make sure sustainable growth exists and accelerates.
For more information about the Entrepreneurship Incubator project, please contact Mr. Tanes Rianglaem, Bureau of Vocational Education Standards and Qualification, Office of the Vocational Education Commission Tel: 02-026-5555 ext. 5003 or tanes.ovec@gmail.com
