On 22nd – 24th July 2016, Universitas Prasetiya Mulya hosted the third edition of the Business Launch and Investor Days (BLIDz) event at Kuningan City mall in Jakarta. The most recent BLIDz event espoused the theme of ‘Venture, Ideas, Pitch’ which aimed to solve challenges impacting social issues in Indonesia. Prasetiya Mulya’s Entrepreneurship Development Center organised the event which showcased 60 start-up businesses engaged in a variety of industries. BLIDz is an annual event and serves as a platform to connect start-up businesses with prospective investors; this year saw the attendance of approximately 90 investors from the university’s network of alumni in addition to working professionals and business owners. The press conference for the official opening of BLIDz 2016 saw in attendance prominent members from Universitas Prasetiya Mulya’s faculty, including Prof. Agus W. Soehadi, Ph.D as Dean of the School of Business and Economics, Mr Ambara, MBA as Chairman of the Entrepreneurship Development Center, Mr Edwin Susanto, Chairman of Creatifest 2016, and Ms Theresia Marsha, Chairman of BLIDz.
As a leading higher education institution in Indonesia renowned for its business education courses, Universitas Prasetiya Mulya invests in providing the resources as well as facilities to engage its students in real world business experiences. As such, through BLIDz 2016, the university has created an ecosystem for entrepreneurship and encouraged participants – who are active students at Universitas Prasetiya Mulya – to take advantage of the opportunity to practise their business pitching skills. Furthermore, BLIDz also seeks to provide small and medium enterprises in Indonesia with better access to the global market by inviting a number of prominent local and international investors to the event.
Part of the programme of the event also included the selection of 20 start-up businesses at BLIDz to conduct their business pitch which covered the company’s business strategy as well as financial projections in front of a panel of jurors which consisted of key management figures including Mr Rahardjo Ramelan, Commissioner of PT Anugrah Capital and Mr Herman Kasih, Vice Secretary General of The Employers' Association of Indonesia. BLIDz also established an Internal Relations division in order to maintain communications amongst investors and participating start-up businesses after the completion of the event. Universitas Prasetiya Mulya’s dedication to producing adept graduates with the capacity to undertake leading roles in businesses is poised to further spur the number of entrepreneurs in Indonesia who will continue to benefit from events such as BLIDz.