BIH, Limkokwing Chew Economic Diversification

Correspondent | Monday September 16, 2019 11:13

The purpose of the session was to discuss ways in which the institution can leverage its creativity for economic diversification.

Limkokwing University’s Vice Chancellor, Dr. Gape Kaboyakgosi said in his welcome remarks that the event marks the recognition of one of the institution’s major niche areas.

Kaboyakgosi added that the university prides itself in industry readiness concept with some collaborative undertakings such as the Coffee Session.

Another speaker, Dean Molebatsi from the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture Development said his ministry is working tirelessly to come up with a sector strategy to drive the creative industry to higher levels.

Molebatsi also said the ministry looks forward to the setting up a national arts council.

“The Ministry of Youth and Ministry of Trade as well as CIPA are working on a creative sector strategy while HRDC is working on the human resource development strategy for the sector,” he said.

CIPA stands for Companies and Intellectual Property Authority while HRDC is the acronym for Human Resource Development Council.

“Once the deliverables have been achieved that would lead to the development of the creative industry,” he added.

Panellists for the discussion were Director and Co- Founder of The Dialogue Group who is also the University’s industry Advisor, Tonderai Tsara and Fashion Designer Mummy Molapo as well as social entrepreneur and visual communicator, Lame Dilotsotlhe.

Tsara observed that Batswana have a peculiar mindset problem in that they expect government and its agencies to provide for them.

“Operate as if you are not going to get a loan. I’ll speculate that only 10% of applications get funding. Does your life end because you did not get funding? You are not being creative and resilient enough in your approach if you think that government must fund everything for you,” he advised.

Dilotsotlhe urged the audience to identify a problem they are trying to solve.

“It’s important to have specific, measurable, attainable, time bound and realistic goals. You also have to think about what happens if you don’t get the funding,” she said in response to some questions from the floor.

For her part, Molapo urged successful entrepreneurs to find time in their busy schedules to mentor upcoming ones. “I know what is more powerful than money is an idea,” she said to the applause from the audience.

Meanwhile Dr. Tacheba, Director of Cluster Development at BIH said the discussions were brilliant. He stated that the sessions were meant to provoke thought process.

“You need to always think outside the box,” he said. He added that the sessions are a platform that allows the voice of those who don’t normally get their voice heard and for crowd sourcing, targeted at those affected by daily challenges and have stepped forward to finding solutions for those challenges.