Blog
You are currently viewing Contribution to Vc’s Graduation Speech

Contribution to Vc’s Graduation Speech

  • Post author:
  • Post category:Speech

25th November 2017

TO:    The Vice Chancellor

Kyambogo University

FROM: Dean, School of Management and Entrepreneurship

SUBJECT:  Contribution to Vc’s Graduation Speech

Introduction

The School of Management and Entrepreneurship has continued to attract a number of students to its popular academic programmes, including Masters of Business Administration, Procurement and Supply Chain, Public Sector Management, Bachelor of Business Administration, Accounting and Finance, Management Science, Procurement and Logistics, Business Studies with Education, and Administrative Science.

The following are the major achievements during 2017 and future plans for 2018:

Major Achievements 2017

  1. A number of collaborations have been initiated with various organisations and institutes all intended to enhance quality training and job creation. These include:
    • Microsoft Dynamics Alliance Academy (MDAA) with Microsoft Corporation. This collaboration will enable the School of Management and Entrepreneurship to access for free Microsoft Dynamics (an Enterprise Resource Planning System) for student training in computerised accounting, e-financial management, e-procurement, e-supply chain management, e-human resource management and e-project management.
    • StartHub Africa Academy: This Academy trains students to be innovative and use entrepreneurship skills imparted to them to create their own jobs. The learners are mentored by a team specialised trainers in entrepreneurship from Spain and Germany (Andrej and Killian). A Pitch Event was organised on 25th November 2017 where the promising entrepreneurs defended their projects and the most viable ones were selected for initial funding provided by StartHub Africa. The Academy attracts students from all faculties and Schools of Kyambogo University who have ideas that can be supported to become business ventures. More training will be provided in 2018.
    • Intra-Africa Academic Mobility Scheme (IAAMS). This Scheme is supported by European Union. A consortium of 6 universities in Africa, including Kyambogo University, have bided and won a grant to the tune of over 1 million Euros to fund a project known as, “Academic Mobility for Harmonisation of Entrepreneurship Education for Sustainable Development in Africa (HEED-Africa)”. The project is aimed at harmonising entrepreneurship education in Africa to enable learners to become innovative while at university and create their own jobs during and after completing their studies. This is intended to reduce on the high levels of unemployment amongst university graduates. A number of staff will be supported to acquire PhDs, Masters and training in short courses in entrepreneurship. In addition, a PhD and Master of Entrepreneurship programmes will be developed. Project kick off is scheduled to take place in Brussels from February 5th – 9th 2018, although the project implementation started on 1st November 2017.
    • Two members of staff of the School (The Dean and Head of Management Science) participated in Enterprise Africa Summit in Accra-Ghana organised by British Council, Ghana in March 2017. The Summit reflected on how to mainstream innovations and entrepreneurship in curricula to enable students to create jobs while they are still at University. There were various exhibitions of university students who had created their own companies, which were supported by the World Bank, British Council and Google.

Future Plans for 2018

  1. Arrangements are underway to finalise a Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Arizona (McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship) to support social entrepreneurship in Kyambogo University. Two members of the University have visited the University of Arizona to negotiate for the MOU.
  2. The School will set up an Innovations and Entrepreneurship Centre. The Centre will be used to manage and coordinate all entrepreneurship collaborations and training in the University and will empower and mentor university students in the generation of innovative ideas and support them into viable business ventures. In addition, the Centre will collaborate with venture capitalists and angel investors to support the innovations of students.
  3. The School will work with the University of Mainz in Germany to develop a Master’s degree in International Business.
  4. A research proposal has been developed by the Coventry University in the UK with various partners in Uganda, including Kyambogo University, School of Management and Entrepreneurship, under the Uganda Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Initiative to develop a five-year strategy to improve the entrepreneurial ecosystems in Uganda in phase 1 of the research project. Three staff of the School will participate in the research.
  5. The School will organise an Open Day to showcase students’ entrepreneurship projects to be guided by experienced mentors and venture capitalists on the key requirements for success in business.