Overview of the Workshop
Bikalpa, an Alternative with the support of the Center for Private Enterprise (CIPE), organized a three-day workshop on Freedom & Entrepreneurship 2022 from 8th to 10th December 2022 at Aqua Birds eco Resort Koshi Tappu. The workshop was a follow-up program to” Entrepreneurship & The Beauty of Market” participants and an engagement program for bikalpa fellow members.
Also, the workshop’s objective is to broaden knowledge on various themes to develop a holistic picture of the values of Individual and Economic Freedom, Entrepreneurship, Public Policy, Accountability, and social contract theory. The three-day workshop includes interactive, informative sessions with group work and presentations, film screening, debate, and discussion to provide a comprehensive learning experience.
25 participants from diverse groups attended the workshop. The good thing was almost all had already participated in Bikalpa Program, which helped the organizers to engage with new ideas and have fantastic interaction during the workshop. The application for the program course was open to all college students and young professionals through Bikalpa’s website. The participants were selected based on their answers to the website’s online registration form questions.
Over the 3 days, the program comprised the following topics.
- Recap of the one-day workshop and Introducing Bikalpa
- Doing business challenge in Nepal
- Colloquium: The economic case for freedom
- What motivates people? The significance of incentive for guiding human actions in the market.
- Movie Discussion
- Social Contract Theory and Political System
- Debate on ‘Who should be Accountable?
Summary of the Session
Day 1
On the first day, all the participants, organizers, and resource persons met at the given destination and departed toward the training destination. After one and a half hours of travel, participants reached the Hotel and had tea and snacks. After reaching out to the program destination, Mrs. Ranu Shah led the event’s first session with a welcome note and introduction to the participants, organizers, and resource persons. During the introduction session, an activity about Telling each other names was conducted by Ranu, which made the youth more comfortable with each other. After welcoming the participants, she also shared logistic information and ground rules.
Following this, Mr. Basanta Adhikari made participants do a short recap of their major take aways and learnings from the one-day workshop. He also gave a presentation on” Introduction of Bikalpa,” where he shared Bikalpa’s Mission, Vision, Goals, and thematic working area. In his presentation, he also talked about the Advocacy, Research, and Campaign activities of bikalpa.
The last evening session of that day dealt with “Challenges of doing business in Nepal” by Mr. Basanta Adhikari with an exercise of dividing the participants into five groups and assigning each group a presentation on the provided topic. Following this, each group presented their assignment in a Five -minute of time. After completing the presentation, the video made by bikalpa on the issue of the doing business challenge was played to understand the current situation related to business registration.
Day 2
Basanta Adhikari
The second day began with a short recap of the activities carried out on the previous day, which boosted to correlate of the session to the last day and proceeded further. The second session of the day, followed by a tea session, was “What Motivates People,” which was moderated by Mr. Basanta Adhikari. He started the session by dividing the participants into a group for activities on “How incentives drive human choices.” In his presentation, he talked about people having different incentives and individuals being moved by their pursuit of self-interest. He also further talked about self-interest and greed. Greed is the excessive desire to gain something by causing harm to others, while self-interest is gaining something by producing good outcomes without harming others.
He also talked about self-motivation in business, where he said business is an activity done to make a profit by providing goods and services without harming others. While giving examples, he highlighted for a business to flourish in any country, the citizens of that country need to have the motivation to engage in business.
Punam Giri
After that, a session on The Movie-discussion session was facilitated by Mr. Punam Giri, in which three short films, namely Feri batti gayo (Electricity problem), Compulsion (Baadhyataa), and Bartaman. The first movie portrays Karnali electricity power cuts issues which have brought many challenges to the entrepreneur. The film highlights the story of Hari Bhandari, who returns to his village in Surkhet, Karnali, to start something after staying abroad for years. Electricity issues challenge his plans, and he must find a way to deal with power cuts.
The second movie explores the livelihood issues of the poor during the Covid-19 lockdown. The film highlights the story of a low-income family who must face many challenges during the Lockdown and how difficult circumstances force them to take a risk for survival. The third movie illustrates the hardship of doing business in Nepal due to unsound policies, corruption, and bureaucratic hurdles that have forced many Nepalese to migrate abroad for their livelihood. They were screened to help participants relate to policy issues. After each movie screening, Mr.Giri took some feedback from the participants and clarified the issues related to those movies. The sessions were very interactive and engaging. All the participants participated actively during the sessions.
Following that, the third session on the debate, “Who should be responsible for delivering the public goods?” was moderated by Mr. Suman Rai. In the session, participants were divided into three groups. The areas selected for the debate were education, health, fuel/gas, and electricity. The three teams, Government, Community, and Private, vowed how their respective sectors could handle public delivery more efficiently than the opponent sectors.
The final day session was on “Let Discuss.” Mr. Basanta Adhikari moderated the discussion. The discussion started with various topics on whether prostitution should be legalized or not. Marijuana should be legalized or not. Should Government Fix the price of goods, or should the state run a business? During the session, different participants opined their views regarding the topic. It helped the participants foster their critical thinking and encouraged analyzing rather than accepting and connecting the individual to the collective. Everybody got involved in interaction about the topic. The moderator also helped participants clarify the issue and gave his input during the discussion session.
3 Day
The third day of the workshop started with a recap of the previous sessions. Afterward, Mr. Basanta Adhikari took the Social Contract Theory and Political Systems session. He remarked that a social contract is an agreement between people and the sovereign on how they will be ruled. He introduced the participants to the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. He also shared that Hobbes was a proponent of Absolutism, a system that placed the state’s power in the hands of a single individual, and Locke advocated a more open approach to state-building.
He focused on four elements of the social contract: Human nature, State of Nature, Social Contract, and Sovereignty. He also highlighted the types of political economy. The types include Socialism (which states that production is collectively owned by the society and redistributes the result), Communism (the community owns the property, and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs), Capitalism (trade and industries controlled by private owners for profit rather than the state).
Riwaj Dahal
The second session of the day, followed by a tea session, was a Colloquium on ‘The economic case for freedom ‘moderated by Mr. Riwaj Dahal. The 90-minute session, based on the reader, dived into the philosophical definition of Entrepreneurship by various philosophers. The discussions also covered the arguments on creative destruction, competition and the essence of entrepreneurs. Participants shared their understanding about the challenges of entrepreneurship and the motivation behind it. The session concluded with the participants listing some takeaways from the discussion.
Summarizing the session at the end, The Program ended by taking the participants’ feedback and distributing certificates. Finally, the participants and the organizing team returned to Biratnagar after lunch on the 10th of December.
