Entrepreneur on mission to educate

A START-UP entrepreneur is on a mission to inspire the youth in Brunei to take up entrepreneurship at a young age by organising motivational talks in schools and education institutions nationwide.

Ak Mohd Khairi Pg Hj Menuddin has been conducting several business motivational talks over the recent months in a number of schools and institutions in Brunei as part of his firm's initiative to promote awareness of entrepreneurship among the youth, where he shared his experiences to motivate the students in the Sultanate to follow his footsteps as a start-up.

Over the past few months, he has conducted motivational talks to several institutions such as the Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD), the Business School, and most recently the Institut Teknologi Brunei (ITB).

Speaking with The Brunei Times yesterday, the founder of PHMD Publishing and co-author of Business Icons said that he wanted to change the 'work for the government' mentality of the young Bruneians to an entrepreneurial mindset, in the hopes that the Sultanate will have more homegrown entrepreneurs and future leaders.

"The biggest issue we have right now is the mentality of our people, which needs to be changed if they want to be entrepreneurs. It's something that I've learned during the process of writing the Business Icons, which I want to share with my audience," he said.

According to Ak Mohd Khairi, the Business Icons book which he co-wrote along with his colleagues in UBD last year has thought him important lessons in life.

He said that the traits of the local business figures he had interviewed for the book inspired him to pursue entrepreneurship as his long-time career.

"Granted if I didn't actually write Business Icons last year I wouldn't know all of the traits of an entrepreneur," he added.

Business Icons have sold more than 2,000 copies in Brunei.

Ak Mohd Khairi is just among the very few young entrpreneurs from the faculty of business in UBD who have stepped into the iCentre start-up incubation programme recently. Another start-up following a similar footstep is Socialdeal.

"We want to set a benchmark for entrepreneurs, that young people, even students can start their own company, if we work hard for it," said the UBD undergraduate.

During the talks, Ak Mohd Khairi shared tips on character building and ways students can stay determined to succeed. Among the highlights of his talk include the importance of ambition in finding success, as well as exercises to test the students' resolve.

He also elaborated on the various challenges of being a start-up to the students based on his experience.

"I want to stress out that entrepreneurship is not only about becoming your own boss, but that it's all about taking big responsibilities, such as watching over your finances and paying your people well," he said.

"The most important lesson for me as a start-up is that you will always experience failure at one point of time, or a couple of times or more, but you will learn through them. You can't avoid failure, and you need to go through it before you can truly succeed," he added.

The young entrepreneur said that his motivational talks have been well received by students.

"I certainly felt a very positive vibe during the talk. They were all enthusiastic.

"Although not all of them would want to take the path of entrepreneurship, at least though the sessions we will be able to identify the future hopefuls," he said.

"These are the ones that we need to look after and give our support and encouragement to. I am confident that with the proper support we have great businesses in the making here," he added.

"Entrepreneurship may not be thriving in Brunei's economic ecosystem right now, but I see that it's going to grow because of the support mechanisms and opportunities that has been introduced in recent years such as the iCentre, the Brunei Economic Development Board's LEAP grant and the AITI grants," he said.

The talk also gave Ak Mohd Khairi the opportunity to promote the Business Icons books and the Made Simple Mobile Commerce books, which were published by PHMD Publishing.

The Brunei Times