Call for Participants & Proposals: 9th UNESCO-APEID Meeting on Entrepreneurship Education

This year’s theme, ‘Entrepreneurship Education: Unleashing the Power of Entrepreneurial Universities and TVET Institutions’, emphasizes the importance of having an entrepreneurial mindset in our learning institutions.

It has been ten years since the inaugural UNESCO-APEID Meeting on Entrepreneurship Education. At that time, the then-director of UNESCO Bangkok, Mr Gwang-Jo Kim strongly believed that entrepreneurship education could address youth unemployment in Asia-Pacific by fostering a fresh wave of creative, motivated, and adaptable young individuals eager to learn, take on new challenges, and grow into the future.

The 3rd UNESCO-APEID Meeting marked the establishment of the UNESCO Entrepreneurship Education Network (EE-Net). The main purpose was to function as a platform to enhance understanding and awareness of entrepreneurship education. Since then, this mandate has been achieved through various activities and channels involving policymakers, educators, researchers, entrepreneurs, students, and communities.

The usual annual meetings of UNESCO-APEID have been suspended since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, however, entrepreneurship in the private sector continued to thrive, lending credence to the saying, ‘Innovation is not born from the dream. Innovation is born from the struggle.’ Numerous valuable lessons can be learned from these circumstances, and it would be a mistake for EE-Net and UNESCO to overlook them.

By transforming institutions, we can transform education.

Transforming education is frequently discussed, but how can we put words into action? The solution lies in transforming our educational institutions. To this end, the 9th UNESCO-APEID Meeting on Entrepreneurship Education emphasizes the significance of entrepreneurial skills for the future. Entrepreneurs see challenges as positive chances and consistently develop ideas to provide job opportunities for themselves and others without being intimidated by AI or bots. Universities and TVET institutions must adopt this entrepreneurial outlook to cultivate more future entrepreneurs.

1. To reinvigorate the UNESCO Entrepreneurship Education Network (EE-Net) by implementing innovative strategies and initiatives. Our ultimate objective is to foster a vibrant and dynamic community of entrepreneurs and educators passionate about promoting entrepreneurship education in Asia-Pacific.

2. To gather stories of successful entrepreneurship during the pandemic, despite all the challenges. We want to collect valuable insights and lessons from successful entrepreneurs which can be shared with others and serve to develop or update entrepreneurship education courses and materials.

3. To develop a comprehensive plan for the EE-Net for the seven-year period of 2024–2030. This plan will include an action plan and various strategies to ensure the network's success in achieving its objectives and contributing to education transformation—no less achieving all the SDG 4 targets by 2030.

The two-day meeting will revolve around five topics, as listed below. The aim is to develop actionable plans and strategies for establishing entrepreneurial universities and TVET institutions. Each topic will be introduced by a keynote presentation, which will then be followed by a group discussion. Guiding questions will be provided for each topic. The discussions will be concurrent, meaning participants may participate in only one session. However, each group will summarize their discussion for the benefit of others during a plenary session.

Topic 1: Governance and Management.

Guiding Questions:
• How can we develop an entrepreneurial culture and mindset in our institutions?
• How can we reflect entrepreneurial intent in the institution's leadership, mission, and vision?
• What are the implications on strategic planning, budgeting, and staffing?

Topic 2: Entrepreneurial Diagnostics:

Guiding Questions:
• Is there an entrepreneurial culture in your institution?
• How is this culture reflected

• in your teaching mandate?
• in your research?
• in your social engagement?

Topic 3: Partnerships:

Guiding Questions:
• What are the good practices for establishing partnerships

• with the industry? e.g. Industrial Parks
• with the government? e.g. Innovation Centers
• with the community? e.g. visiting entrepreneurs

Topic 4: Financing Entrepreneurial Activities of Students On- and Off-Campus.

Guiding Questions:
• What different opportunities do your institutions set up to encourage/incentivize students to pursue entrepreneurship?

• Entrepreneurship competition
• Start-up funding
• Venture capital
• Angel investors/IPO

Topic 5: Teacher Training and Institutional Capacity-Building.

Guiding Questions:
• Are training opportunities available to teachers to develop their entrepreneurial knowledge and skills?
• Do teachers possess a solid foundation in financial literacy and know your institution's entrepreneurship education program?
• How might we build the entrepreneurship capacity of other colleges/departments apart from the College of Business Administration?

In addition to group and plenary discussions, the meeting will feature a book launch, and an exhibition area showcasing posters on the topic of Entrepreneurship Lessons from the Pandemic’. There will also be a discussion on executing a commemorative project for former UNESCO Director Gwang-Jo Kim in tribute to his contributions to entrepreneurship education, and a guided tour of the Zhejiang University campus, highlighting its entrepreneurship education programmes and activities.

26-27 October 2023

Quishi Auditorium, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University, in Hangzhou, China.

The 9th UNESCO-APEID Meeting on Entrepreneurship Education will be an in-person, two-day event on the campus of Zhejiang University, in Hangzhou, China, from 26 to 27 October 2023. Meeting co-organizers UNESCO Bangkok and Zhejiang University invite interested participants to apply for participation in the meeting.

All participants must cover the cost of round-trip travel from their point of origin to China and for their visa application. The organizers will issue an invitation letter to support participants’ visa requests. Local sponsorships will be available to a limited number of participants, covering accommodation, meals, and airport transfers.

Due to the many applications commonly received for these meetings, the organizers will apply three specific criteria to their selection of participants:

1. The quality of the inputs provided in the application form.

2. The need to ensure a fair distribution of participants across all countries.

3. The ability of individuals to finance their travel expenses for attending the meeting in person, in China.

The organizers will officially notify selected participants promptly, thereby allowing them to make travel arrangements and apply for visas at the Chinese Embassy in their respective countries.

TO APPLY FOR PARTICIPATION, PLEASE CHECK THE LINKS BELOW:

• To download the concept note and the application form*
• To submit your application online

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION: 21 SEPTEMBER 2023

_{* This document will be available online for three months after the event announcement was first published. To access the document after that, please write to eisd.bgk(at)unesco.org.}  

Please contact: 

Benjamin VERGEL DE DIOS
Programme Specialist, Section for Educational Innovation and Skills Development, UNESCO Bangkok
b.vergeldedios(at)unesco.org

Prof. Weihui MEI
College of Education, Zhejiang University
tthuihui(at)zju.edu.cn

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