19 umagazine issue 18 A Platform to Encourage Students to Start Their Own Businesses ‘Our students have many innovative ideas, and they are also enthusiastic about starting their own businesses,’ says Prof Yen. ‘But it takes more than passion to start a business. It involves a multitude of complicated issues that need to be learned.’ Established in February 2017, the CI serves as a platform to support faculty and students who want to put their creative ideas to test. Another objective of the institute is to enable university contributions in knowledge and technological innovation by promoting the development and transfer of scientific and technological achievements. ‘After the CI was established, we immediately launched a series of entrepreneurship activities, including lectures, courses, and training camps,’ says Prof Yen. ‘We also provided financial support for faculty and alumni who wanted to start their own businesses. We help students to turn their creative ideas into marketable products or services by providing expert guidance, technology, and funding.’ Expert Guidance to Avoid Detours Prof Yen has been the director of internet finance at Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute, a senior vice president and deputy chief risk officer at a Fortune and Forbes 500 company, and a professor at the University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He also has close industry ties. Soon after the CI was founded, he swung into action, inviting entrepreneurs and representatives from local associations, such as the Industry and Commerce Association of Macau, to share their experience and provide information on local incentive policies for people hoping to start their own businesses. ‘We invited Stanley Tang, who made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2015, to share his experience in starting and expanding his business,’ says Prof Yen. ‘Mr Tang started his business while he was still in college, and his company has won favour with Sequoia Capital, a famous venture capital firm.’ Prof Yen hopes that students can gain inspiration and experience from the series of talks on innovation and entrepreneurship so they can avoid detours when starting their own businesses. Prof Yen has also invited experts from UM’s various academic units to join the consulting team at the CI to support would-be entrepreneurs in such areas as team management, market expansion, financial management, financing, sustainable operation, legal matters, intellectual property rights, and industry-academia collaboration. ‘We want to make full use of the human resources at the university and open courses to teach the basics so that our faculty members and students not only can acquire the necessary skills, but can also develop an entrepreneurial mindset and an entrepreneurial spirit.’ Entrepreneurship Courses with an Emphasis on Practice In the first half of the 2017/2018 academic year, UM launched entrepreneurship courses for undergraduates for the first time, hoping to provide an opportunity for entrepreneurially inclined students to gain a deep understanding of the problems that may be encountered in the process of starting a business. 顏至宏教授經常跟學生開會討論創業計劃 Prof Jerome Yen often holds meetings with students to discuss their entrepreneurial plans
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