“An entrepreneur is a person who has the ability to change feces and wreckage into gold”. Ir. Ciputra-Opening Class of New Graduate school of GMU-

The above statements are from by Ir. Ciputra who was a key speaker in the opening class for new graduate students of Gadjah Mada University in academic year 2007/2008. The attendance of Ir. Ciputra who is a big international entrepreneur in the property field is a great accomplishment for Gadjah Mada University. Ir. Ciputra’s visit was not only to give a lecture in the opening class, but also to build a relationship with GMU for establishing the university as a centre of excellence and entrepreneurship.

In the opening class which was organized on Monday, September 10, 2007, Ir. Ciputra explained that there were 5 important reasons why entrepreneurship should be taught at school. The First, many people of the young generation did not grow up in entrepreneurship culture. In Indonesia, inspiration and business exercises were not taught at school. The second, the numbers of unemployed in Indonesia are high. In 2006 there were 10,93 million people who were unemployed. According to Tempo magazine in edition August 20-26, 2007, there were 6709.000 educated people who are jobless. The third, the numbers of opportunities for employment are limited. Job opportunities are not equal with the numbers of unemployment. The forth, the growth of entrepreneurship can create opportunities for employment; and can also create social welfare in society widely. According to David McClelland, a great sociologist, a country will develop if there is entrepreneur at least 2% of the citizens are entrepreneurs. According to the report which was published by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor; in 2005, the number of entrepreneurs in Singapore was about 7.2% of the population. Indonesia only has 0.18% from the number of its citizen. It is not strange the income of Singapore increases tens times mane than Indonesia. According to Prof. Lester C Thurow in his book Building Wealth; “there is no institution which can change the role of entrepreneur as the agent of change”. Ciputra said that the people who are more ready to be taught and exercised as entrepreneur are students. The fifth, Indonesia is very rich with natural resources, however, the natural resources are not arranged well. It happens because Indonesia has less human resources (entrepreneur) who are able to change feces and wreckage into gold.

In the opening class, Ir. Ciputra opened the mind of graduate students and lecturers when he said that the definition of entrepreneur is not only related to business. It is also related to other fields. According to him, there are four groups of entrepreneur:

• Business Entrepreneur. This group is divided into two groups. There are owner entrepreneurs and professional Entrepreneurs. Owner entrepreneurs are the creators and owners of the business. A professional entrepreneur is a person who has an entrepreneurs soul, however he/she works as an employee in a business.
• Government entrepreneur. A government entrepreneur is a leader of a country who is able to manage and grow the entrepreneur spirit of his/her citizens. An example of a government entrepreneur is Lee Kuan Yew, an ex president of Singapore.
• Social entrepreneur. People who are included in this group are the founding fathers of social organizations in the world who are successful in collecting funds from society in order to do social work. An example of someone fromthis group is Mohamad Yunus, an establisher of Grameen Bank and a noble achiever in 2006.
• Academic Entrepreneur. People who are in this group include academics who teach at school or arrange educational organizations with entrepreneurship style. Harvard and Stanford University are universities which arrange the educational world with an entrepreneurs style.

Furthermore, Ir. Ciputra said that being an entrepreneur can be taught. According to him to create enough entrepreneurs in Indonesia, Indonesia should do a quantum leap. There are three ideas in the quantum leap. First, in the primary and secondary level there should be curriculums that teach about entrepreneurship. Second, entrepreneurs should be created and developed in the graduate level. Third, there should be national entrepreneurship training movements done by the government and people in order to teach a wider group of people.

In the end of his presentation, Ir. Ciputra hoped that Gadjah Mada university can inherit the spirit of Gadjah Mada, an Indonesian hero in Majapahit period, by making Gadjah Mada Unversity as a center of excellence in entrepreneurship. According to the Director of the Graduate School of Gadjah Mada University, Prof. Dr. Irwan Abdullah, in order to make Gadjah Mada University a center of excellence and entrepreneurship, GMU will work together with Ciputra Entreprenir Foundation to discuss and create an entrepreneurship curricullum which will be taught at GMU.