Nurturing entrepreneurial mindset amongst university students has become a prime focus for researchers. This is motivated by the need to solve the persistent challenge of youth unemployment. In Kenya alone, unemployment among the youth remains one of the major policy concerns of the Government, as 35% of the youth (4.5 million young men and women) remain unemployed.
The presentation that attracted students, graduates and research fellows, focused on enlightening the students on opportunities available in both open community manufacturing and household manufacturing. This way, one can plough back this knowledge into developing products that can be produced from the comfort of their household.
The participants were taken through the general approaches to product development, particularly with an aim to commercialise the products.
“We want this presentation to shift the mindset of students so that they understand employment is not the only way to go, instead they can utilise their skills to set up businesses, and investing in small scale manufacturing is a good point for a start,” said George Mulahi, the Director and Product Development Expert at Orlab Investments.
“Additionally, our presence here seeks to open avenues of collaboration with students, as well as partnerships with the university in both research activities involving product development and customisation of the curriculum to make it more practical,” Mulahi explained.
The presentation also covered knowledge on various methods of production, distribution channels, pricing strategies, legal requirements and potential challenges facing open community manufacturing and household manufacturing.
Mr. Justus Soita, an Assistant Lecturer, in the Department of Material Science and Technology expressed optimism that if the available knowledge is utilised, Kenyans can discourage cheap imports whose quality is compromised and may be posing serious health risks to consumers.
Orlab Investments is a manufacturer of innovative products in chemical, food, engineering and pharmaceutical sector.
