When I first heard of the word Technopreneurship, I already had an idea of what our subject was all about. I was thinking that the core or base of this subject is entrepreneurship but since we are Information Technology students, it would really involve technology. I was thinking that Technopreneurship is an entrepreneurship merged or combined with technology prowess. And I was right all along.
I have learned so many things last semester in our subject Technopreneurship. I have learned that Technopreneurship is one of the best solutions for the increasing rate of unemployed. Unemployment chooses nobody, even though you are a graduate or undergrad. Through the help of Technopreneurship, one will not experience unemployment; instead, he or she can generate jobs for the unemployed.
A Technopreneur is an entrepreneur who is technology savvy, creative, innovative, dynamic, dares to be different and take the unexplored path, and very passionate about their work. They take challenges and strive to lead their life with greater success. They don't fear to fail. They take failure as a learning experience, a stimulator to look things differently and stride for next challenge. Technopreneurs continuously go through an organic process of continual improvement and always try to redefine the dynamic digital economy. I got this definition and description from the internet. This was for me to fully understand the subject.
The good example of a successful Technopreneur is Steve Jobs. We were able to know able his life story before and after the birth of the Apple Company through the movie “Pirates of the Silicon Valley”. Steve Jobs, together with his good friend Steve Woz, started from scratch and became a famous Technopreneur that has brought the first personal computer and interesting innovative technologies to the world. Just like any of us, he has also experienced failure. But, the good thing about Steve Jobs, he was able to manage the negativity that has happened to his life. He has made the best of life out of his failures and was able to find his way back to success. With Steve Jobs’ life story, I was able to learn and understand more about life as a Technopreneur. To be a good Technopreneur, one must learn from his past experience. No matter how bad or good one has experienced, he or she must learn from those things. As they say, our experience is the best teacher. There are some things in life that we may learn through the help of books or by surfing through the internet, but, we could only fully understand these things by experiencing it. Another thing that I have learned from Steve Jobs’ life story is that, we are not destined to fail; hence, we were the one who chooses failure as an option. His love and passion for his work has led him to his success and contentment despite of his failures and hardships that he had experienced. Through his experience, I was able to understand that a good technopreneur must first find what he or she loves and never lose grip on it. Aside from the movie that we watched, I was also able to read his commencement address. Through his commencement address, I have learned that his hardship did not end with what the movie had shown us. He had an illness that almost cut his life short. But because of it, he was able to learn to live like he will die tomorrow. His commencement still talks about his life, success, and hardships. As we all know, Steve Jobs was not able to finish his college life because his family cannot supply his financial needs for his school. But, he was still invited to present a commencement address to a famous university. This only shows that though he lacks the diploma that others have, he still was able to gain respect from others through the success that he had achieved.
From the movie down to his commencement, Steve always stresses to find what we love. It is because if we find what we love, then it would be easy for us to find our purpose in life. With the experiences that he had, he truly is an inspiration for all of us. He is not a perfect man, but he has made things perfect for man.
We did some activities that gave us added knowledge and skills that made us an aspiring technopreneurs. The first activity that we did, as far as I could remember, was connecting the dots. This activity may seem very simple but this had taught us to think out of the box. Most of us were not able to connect the six dots with four strokes because they never thought of going outside the box. Although we had already encountered the same activity before, we still had forgotten how it should be done. This activity has also taught me to follow simple instructions.
Our facilitator introduced to us the SEED model. SEED is the acronym for Self – Mastery, Environment Mastery, Enterprise Mastery, and Development of Business Plan. This SEED model will help us to fully understand how it is to survive in Technopreneurship. We were only able to tackle one part of the SEED model which is the self- mastery. We did several activities to practice the self – mastery. As a part of self – mastery, we were instructed to take three different tests by searching for those tests by ourselves; these tests were Emotional Quotient test (EQ), Intelligence Quotient Test (IQ), and Adversity Quotient (AQ). These tests helped us understand ourselves. This is because there are some things that we don’t know about ourselves, these things are our unconscious reactions of different situations that happened in our lives. The first test that I took was the Intelligence Quotient. I based my result with the USEPAT result since our instructor said that it is valid. This USEPAT is an entrance exam that measures the mental capacity and capability of the students. The test measures the knowledge of students in different fields. This test measures the intelligence or the cognitive abilities of a person to show or indicate ones potential. The next test that I took was the Emotional Quotient test. I took different Emotional Quotient Test to check whether the test that I took was reliable or not since I took the test online and most of the sites were not that known. This test has revealed our emotional reactions to difficult situations. The importance of taking this test is for us to fully understand our own emotions and be aware of the emotions of others to act appropriately based on our own understanding. The last test that I searched through the internet was the Adversity Quotient Test. Same with what I did when I took the EQ test; I also took several tests to test the reliability of the results. The importance of taking such test is for us to evaluate our capacity to withstand unexpected adversities. Aside from the three tests that we took, our facilitator gave us another test which served as our exam. This test was the Personality traits test. Among the entire test that I took, this test was the most interesting one since this test will try to measure ones capability to be a Technopreneur. The purpose of the Personality Traits test is to assess the match between ones personal profile and the required career profile. By taking these tests, I have learned that one must not limit himself or herself with the knowledge that he or she have gained from the books that one have read, he or she should also learn to act accordingly to have a harmonious social life. We also had an activity where we listed down the things that we love, things that we are best at, and our irritants. The purpose and importance of this activity was to recall all those things for the next and last activity that we did. This activity was the presentation of business plan. This activity was by group and each group has five members. We took this activity for granted, that was why our first business plan was neglected. We had based our first business plan with the things that we had listed in the past activity ( the things that we love, best at, and irritants ). We also based our business plan with our capability as a student and followed the trend. The problem with our first activity was we did not chose of a business wisely, we did not think out of the box, and we followed the trend of customizing stuffs. Though it was rejected, we did not lose hope. We have decided to create several business plans for the next presentation and we have decided to present Irwin’s business plan first. The purpose of making several business plans were for backups. Luckily, our business plan was approved though other students from the evening program had several related and unrelated questions. In this activity, I was able to learn to accept rejection. Though ours was rejected, we never felt the pressure. Stressing ourselves won’t help us think of a better idea. I have also learned to explore my creative side. Creativity is breaking the conventional mental blocks and playing with imagination and possibilities, leading to new and meaningful connections and outcomes while interacting with ideas, people and the environment. With the activities that we had, I have learned that one must not rely solely to the people whom we think is capable of leading. We must also learn and practice leadership than just being led by someone. The problem with this is that, people tend to be passive. We tend to pass the responsibility of a leader because we are afraid that people might point their fingers unto us if we fail to reach their expectation. But if we will not start making a move and taking risks, how would we ever achieve the success that we all wanted to have? Let’s stop being passive and start making our own marks. We should also stop neither following nor hiding from other’s shadow. Let us stop following trends. The technological advancement is still in the stage of growth. If we will continue to follow trends than creating trends, then I can say that we are capable of passing the requirements of being a good Technopreneur.
The most important thing that I have learned in our Technopreneurship subject is that, there is no such thing as impossible for a person who is determined and focused to finish with what he or she is doing. A great example for this is our assignments in Technopreneurship. When I first heard that we were going to write thousands of words for our assignments, I was quite worried because I am not that good with writing. I even failed with our exams in our arts subject when I first took it because most of the items were in essay type. Our instructor at that time was Sir Paul ( the instructor who loves to wear red ), he was rating our essays based on how many pages we have written and not basing on its content. But this problem is now just a thing of the past. With the assignments that we had with our Technopreneurship subject, I could even do two thousand words just like this first exercise in our Technopreneurship 2. Hurray! Before we had ended our Technopreneurship subject, I also have learned that it pays to be patient and punctual.
Traditional educational programs, however, lack the methodology to transform today's students into creative, innovative, visionary global leaders who understand the importance of learning technopreneurship. We are very lucky to be enrolled in a university which includes Technopreneurship as a part of the curriculum.
I have learned so many things in our Technopreneurship subject. The only problem that I have encountered is acting upon the learning that I have gained. I still need to push myself more to practice the things that I have learned.
