Prior to beginning my Fulbright Professorship in Macedonia to teach entrepreneurship and economics at the State University of Tetova, I wrote a proposal in search of financial support to conduct a national business plan competition for university students in Macedonia.
I could find no support in the US and tried also to find a US corporation with a presence in Macedonia who might be interested in supporting a Macedonian project. The US corporations in Macedonia were totally non-responsive. Not even the courtesy of a rejection letter!
The US Embassy let me know they had a grants program that might be able to support such a project as I envisioned, but there was a stipulation – the grant could not go to me or even the State University - it had to be to a Macedonian based NGO (non profit). So, I started researching NGOs in Macedonia, contacted a few and was fortunate to get an enthusiastic response from the Macedonian affiliate of the international organization Junior Achievement. The JA organization in Macedonia had a good history of sponsorship of entrepreneurship programs at the high school level and Ms. Jasmina Maneva, JA-Macedonia executive director, was very interested in expanding its programs into the universities.
So, together with Ms. Maneva, we wrote a proposal, submitted it to the Public Affairs Democracy Grants Program at the US Embassy and received an award of $18,200. The competition was to culminate in an awards dinner on November 21, 2008 – to coincide with the worldwide celebration of Global Entrerpreneurship Week, sponsored in part by the E M Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, MO. My immediate hope was that we could get the Ambassador to be part of the awards ceremony. So I mentioned it to several Embassy staff and then directly to the ambassador when he appeared at an orientation meeting for Macedonian Fulbrighters at the Embassy. Most thought his attendance was a possibility, including the Ambassador. (As it turned out the Ambassador did attend to everyone’s delight!)
Work on the project began while I was still in the US as publicity materials, rules for the competition, and venues were considered and written in draft form. One complication was the need to have all materials available in three languages – English, Macedonian and Albanian. Through the hard work and competence of Ms. Maneva and the input and advice from my State University of Tetova colleague Mr. Blake Childs (Peace Corp volunteer) the materials were drafted, reviewed and disseminated first by email to all university faculties in the nation and then, in early October, printed materials including posters were distributed and hung in all universities,
It was my opinion that my personal appearance would be vital to garnering faculty and student interest in the competition. I was pleased to learn that most university programs included entrepreneurship and business planning in their formal curriculum and not just in the economics faculties but in other faculties like engineering and law. What this meant was that I would not have to spend a lot of time explaining what entrepreneurship and business plans were. So, as promised in our proposal, I spent half of the month of October traveling around the nation talking directly with students and professors about the role of business plans and competitions including some instruction in key business plans concepts like the value proposition and business model.
My visits to universities were made possible and coordinated by JA’s Ms. Maneva and this was not a trivial task. She had to make hundreds of phone calls, follow-up calls, return calls to people not in their offices, calls to people who did not return phone calls, wrong numbers and various other sundry insults. The problems were overcome through her persistence and hard work. She succeeded in arranging 12 different presentations in all of Macedonia’s major population and university centers. In all I spoke to more than 600 students and faculty in a 14 day period.
After that we sat back and waited to the plans to arrive. In the proposal we said we hoped for 30 but I would accept 20 as a measure of success. In the end when the submission deadline of November 7 rolled around we had 37 plans representing 10 universities from throughout the country. Quite a relief for all of us who put so much effort into this project!
With 37 plans in three different languages, the week of November 7-14 was quite hectic with doing translations into English and then meeting with a panel of judges to select the top 10 teams for the oral competitions a week later on November 21. We did it and then sat back to wait to see how the oral competitions would unfold.
The ten finalists and their academic mentors/advisors were invited all expenses paid to the State University of Tetova to present their plans orally to a distinguished panel of judges. The judges who appear in the group photo are from left to right: JUDGE Dr. Nasser Raimi, entrepreneurship text author and member of State University Economics Faculty; Dr. Bexheti, Rector, State University of Tetova, JUDGE Mr. Ilya Vuckov Mr. Ilya Vuckov, Entrepreneur, winner of Best Business Plan of Year, Macedonia 2007 and President and Founder, AGV Design, Skopje, MK, US Ambassador Philip Reeker, JUDGE Ms Jasmina Maneva, Executive Director JA- Macedonia and JUDGE Mr. Blerim Zlatku, President North-West Macedonia Chamber of Commerce. (JUDGE John Sumansky is not in the group photo. He is shown in the photo making remarks in front of event signage.)
The oral part of the competition began at 1:30 PM and was done by 4:30 PM. The judges worked from 4:30 to 5:30 and in that time selected the top five and then from that group named the first and second place winners. The first place team received $1,000 cash, second place got $500, three honorable mentions got $250 per team while the remaining five finalists each got $100. Faculty mentors also received cash prizes of $100.
The highlight of the day occurred when the US Ambassador Philip Reeker joined us in Tetova to make a brief speech on entrepreneurship and announce the winners! One of the photos in this blog the Ambassador making remarks at the awards ceremony. He made himself available for photos afterwards. Everyone in Tetova was most happy that the Ambassador would come to town to participate in this event.
This turned out to be a very successful event and as it turns out, for me, a great Fulbright experience. I met and had coffee with dozens of faculty at 10 universities, talked with hundreds of students, drove to and visited all of Macedonia’s major cities and together with JA and my colleague Blake Childs at State University of Tetova (SUT) orchestrated a national event that, because it took place at State University, helped increase the visibility and presence of one of the nation’s newest and least know higher education institution.
I’ll take this opportunity to thank everyone: Ambassador Reeker,. Embassy staff especially Gazmend Ilazi, Amy Storrow and Public Affairs Officer Ryan Rowlands, Ms. Jasmina Maneva, JA, Mr. Blake Childs, SUT Rector Dr. Bexheti, Ms. Maja Vucinic, translator and also Professor Senad Abduli, International Affairs Office, SUT. If I missed someone please forgive me because there were many others who made this event possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment