Think Big forum: Using ICT innovation to spur business
YING CHIA
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
INSPIRATION comes at any and every moment. At least that’s what the iCentre hopes to instil into participants at this year’s Think Big Innovate 2011: A Technology and Entrepreneurship Forum.
Titled “Innovation… Inspiring and Driving Change”, the collaboration between the iCentre and Asia Inc Forum hopes to spur further growth in ICT, technology and entrepreneurship.
Stuart Kemp, executive director at Asia Inc Forum, said, “I think for me, this is really around what the iCentre is really doing. The purpose of the iCentre is to inspire incubatees, inspire entrepreneurs. To deliver change, positive change for Brunei, through innovation. I think that’s really what those words mean.”
In terms of the programme, “it’s really how we built it in terms of rather than this purely being a technology-focused forum, we want to have this focused on and around entrepreneurship and we wanted a change,” he said.
“In terms of other elements, we’ve got digital marketing, we’ve got social media all very positive things for Brunei and innovation we’re going to bring in terms of our ICT we’ve got our breakout sessions where we’re going to talk about innovation. How can you use innovation within ICT to make a positive contribution to businesses.”
Kemp said ICT is still recognised as a growth area by both the government and private sectors. “It’s an opportunity for a small country like Brunei to make a positive change because you don’t need huge amounts of investment necessarily, to make this change. So for Brunei, it’s a huge opportunity in terms of ICT.” But ICT is more than that, he said, noting it’s really about a number of things and “here we’re talking about entrepreneurship, and that’s really talking about how a business can grow from scratch, and that’s what the iCentre is looking to do, create businesses in line with His Majesty’s vision of entrepreneurship”. Kemp said the link between Asia Inc Forum and iCentre is part of the objective to bring in change to the Sultanate. “Our vision is to make a positive change in Asia, that’s what Asia Inc Forum is for. It’s to make a positive change in Asia and specifically, in Brunei.”
One of the major changes to the forum’s mechanics will be the adoption of a format, modelled after the popular talks by the Technology Education and Design organisation.
Kemp said the organisers decided on the format to inspire the audience, and budding entrepreneurs, to believe that they could also do something great.
“We wanted a way to communicate this inspiration to the audience, and the past few years we’ve always had presentations in a very straightforward style, so we wanted something that could make the audence think,” said iCentre Manager Hadie Shafie. It was meant as a way to bring all the necessary people together as it has been pushing its companies but still needs stronger support from other sectors, hence the forum will become a platform for all the necessary parties to gather, discuss and be inspired. He added that this support would help to push products from the iCentre out into the market.
Hui Kwok Leong, iCentre director, said the forum acts as a “catalyst” for change for participants. “That’s why this year we are highlighting quite a fair bit of our incubatees, one of them will be presenting on e-learning and the Internet as a platform for learning.”
The Brunei Times