New centre to strengthen culture of entrepreneurship in Seychelles |22 August 2016

The University of Seychelles (UniSey) Guy Morel Institute at Ma Joie, in partnership with the Ministry of Investment, Entrepreneurship Development and Business Innovation (MIEDBI), has recently launched the UniSey Enterprise Centre at the institute through the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between them.

The main aim of the centre is to strengthen the culture of entrepreneurship in the country and to create a new generation of entrepreneurs with the capability to really make things happen. It will be at the heart of a new generation of creative entrepreneurs who will be equipped to operate in domestic, regional and global markets. It will draw together a multi-disciplinary team to provide education and training opportunities; undertake research and consultancy; engage in live projects; assist start-ups in taking their ideas to market and to raise awareness of entrepreneurship across the nation.

The setting up of the enterprise is in line with UniSey’s Strategic Plan 2014-2016.

Its director is Marie Celine Zialor, who provided more details on the centre. 

“When we did strategic planning, it was decided the UniSey had to stay relevant both nationally and internationally – hence the enterprise centre. And this had to be done with very strong partnership with the MIEDBI,” Ms Zialor said, who added that “this is the beginning of great things to happen”.

“The main aim is strengthening this whole venture of entrepreneurship. We have talked more than actually act. A lot is being said about people not being very entrepreneurial here. But that comes with education, partners, investment – it needs to be nurtured and put together, to create this generation of entrepreneurs we all dream of,” Ms Zialor said.

“And the most important thing is ‘making things happen’. This is going to be the motto of this centre,” she added.

Talking on the vision of the enterprise, Ms Zialor said it is to be the national leader in entrepreneurship development. And as for the principles which she also described as very important, is we have to reflect on essential values of Seychelles and support the principle of sustainable development.

“What this means is that we have got to develop this culture of entrepreneurship, businesses, but we should not lose ourselves, our values in the process. Because there are countries where this has happened. We do not want a situation where after five, six years, after we have full entrepreneurship skills we don’t recognise Seychelles or we don’t recognise Seychellois,” Ms Zialor explained.

She urged to keep Seychelles unique! This is our trade mark. That people come here because we are different. And another important aspect is we have got to work closely with other businesses, government departments to achieve progress.

“Partnership plays an important role here so as to create synergy and linkages. One of the world Bank’s report on Seychelles analysis says we have a lot of entities, we have  a lot of policies, we have really good plans but we don’t have synergy,” she said.

She added this centre will be like a hub where all these entities would come and so we all know what everybody else is doing and that nobody will be duplicating activities,” she said.

With regard to ‘how to make things happen’, Ms Zialor said she plans on having tangible activities for the centre so it will be able to operate nationally, regionally and internationally.

“But we have to dream. That’s how it starts with entrepreneurship – with a dream. We dream nationally and then regionally. We have done some research on some of the issues we face on entrepreneurship and found out in Seychelles they are similar - similar to Africa, similar to the rest of the world.

“So why can’t we be a leader in the region for that? Even dream further, global. Who would not want to come to Seychelles. We need to start being innovative and find how can that be to our advantage. And people will surely come to Seychelles to be entrepreneurial because this is a global issue,” she said.

So together with our partners, UniSey will provide education training opportunities. They will start off by training 500 people between September this year and next February.

Ms Zialor said the enterprise has got to develop this culture of entrepreneurship, businesses