Every Last Thursday of the Gregorian month, Bikalpa – an Alternative jointly organizes the “Last Thursday’s” event at Biratnagar in collaboration with Hotel Namaskar, Makalu Television, Nepal Youth Entrepreneur Forum (NYEF), Biratnagar International College and with the support of Atlas Network. The objective of the program is to disseminate the ideas and knowledge about entrepreneurship through the personal sharing of successful entrepreneurs. Also, the program creates an opportunity to do networking and share ideas among the participants.
The 47th Last Thursday with an Entrepreneur was held on 25 July 2019 Biratnagar. The Guest Speaker for the program was Mr. Ashutosh Tiwari, Managing Director of SAFAL Partners which has started an organized angel investment platform to work with SMEs in Nepal.
Followed by the address of the keynote speaker, Ashutosh Tiwari highlighted the importance of entrepreneurship and things which he had learned from the journey of his work experiences. He said, in work journey, I got an opportunity to work with Nepali, American, and Europeans Indian entrepreneurs. Some of whom I also met them in conferences. Then onwards I always had a question in mind that why we Nepali Entrepreneur can’t go globally in market. Recalling his old memories about storytelling by Grandmother he told an entrepreneur should be imaginary and good storytellers. Imagination and creativity is the hallmark for any entrepreneur. It is input for entrepreneurship. Everybody works but the one who have creativity and imagination does innovation in the world. He further addressed a major issue about the education system. We lack creative education system. The education system where we learn different things don’t make us entrepreneur. If we look at the different sectors of entrepreneurs then what is common in them is their imagination. Lack of imagination affects in entrepreneurship Entrepreneur should always ask Question before any things because it helps them to give and direction to move ahead. When we question our self and imagine then we can have new thing.
Speaking at the event about his partnership to support Local entrepreneurs, Ashutosh Tiwari, shared about Safal Partners which is also known as “Angel Investors” Small Investment business Company which he had stared two years ago. He said in the context of Nepal we don’t need a big capital to do business. Small paid up capital can help to grow the small scale business. Angel investors are those collective investors who invest in small business and help them to grow. The company will not only invest but will work towards capacity building of entrepreneurs and evolve the specific program to address the challenges entrepreneurs face. This Angel investment is his imagination of applied imagination.
While sharing his thought he said I am not form the background of businessman family. So, at first I worked in different company such as Himal Media, Sherpa Adventure Gear-Nepal, Country Director at Water Aid-Nepal which experience helped him realize the tremendous potential and confidence in him before embarking in the entrepreneurial journey. He added Entrepreneurship gives the economy job-makers instead of job-takers. It solves problems instead of relying on the government or authorities to come up with solutions. But as we know everybody can’t be a successful entrepreneur at a time. He said if you have the interest to something whatever negativity comes around you, you should pursue it. We should develop learning attitude habits. We all have Learning ability and should focus on learning new things. When we stop learning then we couldn’t build confidence level. Confidence help in progress of our life. Our whole life learning process. After he finished talking about the entrepreneurship, he took in questions from the audience as well. The audience, eager to participate, asked insightful questions. 106 people attended the event held at Hotel Namaskar Biratnagar.
