Arba Minch University has recently forged another fruitful alliance with the Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences, Germany (HNU) by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the joint project, ‘Applied Entrepreneurship Education Program’ (AEEP), in Neu-Ulm, Germany on October 18, 2013.
AMU President, Dr Feleke Woldeyes, has signed the MoU with his German counterpart; Research and Community Service Vice President, Dr Guchie Gulie was accompanying him for the week-long official tour to Germany.
The AEEP project, jointly developed by AMU and HNU, is funded by German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and carried out by DAAD under the program ‘Praxisparterschaften 2013,’ informed Dr Guchie Gulie.
Getting into the project dynamics, he said, ‘‘It’s a three-year long capacity building project, that will conclude in 2016. The project would primarily harness and promote entrepreneurial aspirations amongst Electrical Engineering students in AMU and its staff.
In the first phase, 8-member delegation (7 faculty members and a coordinator) from AMU’s Electrical Engineering Department will visit HNU next March-April to get trained in entrepreneurial skills. These trained personnel will develop teaching modules which will be implemented for the chosen students.
The same batch will again go back to Germany probably in October 2014, where the team’s work will be evaluated and modified for the better outcome.
During summer, AMU will sponsor the selected students to stay in the campus to study two-month extensive training. Thereafter, they will have to produce micro-business plan and again the instructors will go back to HNU to get their performance evaluated and to get more training to improve the teaching module, Dr Guchie added.
The training is intended to help students tap their entrepreneurial skill to get professionally established in life. Depending upon its success, AMU would like to get AEEP become the part of Electrical Engineering curriculum.
‘‘These selected 25 students after the training would be writing business proposal and selected students may visit Germany. However, our work doesn’t stop here, AMU will also try to get them attach to any industries. And those interested in business may be provided with financial aid on small level,’’ Dr Guchie averred.
HNU officials would be visiting AMU, during AEEP’s kick-off conference in December 2013 and concluding conference will be held in 2016.
Getting into the nitty-gritty, Dr Guchie, said, ‘‘Both partners, HNU & AMU will offer together an extraordinary combination of technical and business expertise with networks in Ethiopia and Germany for further development.
There are potentially promising stakeholders like Phaesun Gmbh, XCOM.Africa, Chamber of Crafts Ulm and Sahay Solar Afrikaverein who will willingly facilitate their technical strength, opportunity identification methods, vocational & entrepreneurial training experts and project implementation experience in Ethiopia to link both Ethiopian and German counterparts.
Seeking partnership for new MBA double degree program for healthcare professionals and e-learning education methods, Dr Feleke and Dr Guchie had been to Centre for Health Management at Neu-Ulm and met Dr Rainer Burk and Institute for Decentralized Electrification in the scope of mini-grid, Entrepreneurship & Education officials to explore the possibility of new research and education projects.
In a meeting with SMART Hydropower Managing Director, Dr Karl Reinhard Kolmsee, they talked about a new experiment station with micro turbine at AMU and voluntary involvement of their experts in training AMU students in micro hydro studies.
Centre for International Migration (CIM) offered to help AMU in repatriation of Ethiopian professionals settled in Germany. They are keen to work with AMU on AEEP and also develop Centrum for innovation and entrepreneurship. The most influential German Ethiopian Diaspora organization – DASAV was also visited.
They also visited to a hydraulic and water resource laboratory of Technical University of Munich (TUM) and discussed research opportunities for Ethiopian students with renowned Professor Peter Rutschmann, head of Civil Engineering and Geodesy, who expressed his willingness to take AMU on board of the consortium of research
The visit to the laboratory of hydraulics and water resource engineering that produces huge models for simulation and implementation of hydraulic projects of international standard left them thoroughly spellbound, because Dr Guchie quipped, ‘our laboratories are only for teaching purposes.’
By Philips Joseph