Bali News

It is widely known that throughout the country, available job opportunity is by far less than the number of work force. Many qualified human resource produced by universities every year fail to get job opportunity. Entrepreneurship is believed to be a viable solution to address the problem.

To facilitate growth of young entrepreneurs, Bank Mandiri introduce a program called Wirausaha Muda Mandiri (Independent Young Entrepreneur / WMM). Delivered as its corporate social responsibility, the program was focused to Indonesian young generation.

Included in the program was a workshop on independent entrepreneurship conducted in nine main cities across the coutry including Denpasar. In Denpasar the event took place on Tuesday, August 18th, at Widya Sabha Hall of Udayana University. Focus of WMM is to open the mindset of students to start making their own business and decrease their dependencies to available job opportunity. “The focus of WMM is to improve capacity of small and micro entrepreneurs to become more though, independent, and bankable”, Vice President of Bank Mandiri, Wayan Agus Mertayasa, said in a press conference.

To create new entrepreneurs, the mindset of young generation, especially students, has to be changed. Become an entrepreneur should be their objective for the future instead of depending themselves to available job market. Therefore the workshop presented experienced entrepreneurs to give practical tips, including fashion designer Carmanita, M. Nadjikh of Kelola Mina Laut, Rheinald Khasali, and Made Artana of balimedia.net. More than 600 students from 16 universities attended the event.

Agus Mertayasa ensures that the workshop was just an initial stage which will be followed by coaching and assistance to access financing resources. “After the workshop, the students can submit business proposal. Accepted proposal will get 1 million rupiah”, he said. Furthermore, those who want to bring their proposal forward into a real business, Bank Mandiri is prepared to supply financial capital in partnership loan framework.

Director of Risk Management of Bank Mandiri, Sentot A. Sentausa said after a year, Bank Mandiri will promote them to enter WMM nomination. “Then they will get closer coaching to prepare them to become real though entrepreneurs”, he said.

A successful nominee of WMM back in 2007, Saptuari Sugiharti, from Yogyakarta, explained the benefits he received from the WMM program. “I started by attending WMM workshop which opened my mind to start a merchandise business”, he said. His small business then entered WMM nomination which gave him education, knowledge, and tips from experts. The new know how eased his way to get various supports, from media coverage to financial capital. “Now I have expanded my business beyond Yogyakarta and getting income of more than 700 million from only 7 million per month in his early days”, he said.

Increasing entrepreneurship is expected to help alleviate poverty. The program is also expected to support the government in decreasing unemployment which is predicted to increase up to 12.2 million in 2009. “We also hope that other corporations will follow our effort. With more enterprises paying attention and support to young generation, I believe entrepreneurship level in Indonesia will increase”, Agus said.