Are you a strong believer in your goals which will lead you to a successful future and are you working hard enough to prepare that future?
Or are you a newcomer to business and the entrepreneurial world but full of passion and aim?
If your answer is YES, this valuable piece of paper is given to you as a gift because you are ready to be an expert with your own innovative and unique ideas and goals.
When you are on a path to success, you will face many difficulties, new challenges, meet new people and opportunities, and you must be aware of all the circumstances, rules, and prior scenarios that are related to your path. This will be considered necessary if you want to succeed in your academic journey or on a digital or non-digital business platform.
At this moment, our main target is to achieve success on your digital business platform. Therefore, the Entrepreneurship and Innovative Club of the University of Colombo collaborated with MAAS Holdings company to share a unique and important opportunity with all the enthusiasts in our country.
The Entrepreneurship and Innovative Club of the University of Colombo is a very unique and truly wonderful club established at the University of Colombo that leads youth to an innovative world and improves their own ideas related to the business world. They will act as a support system for a new entrepreneur and provide thousands of opportunities to recognize and improve their entrepreneurial spirit within themselves.
MAAS Holdings is South Asia’s largest manufacturer of clothing items which is cooperating with a large number of business entrepreneurs. Well-educated entrepreneurs’ efforts and innovative ideas are driven for the excellence of this company, and they are globally associated to expand their identity as a unit and as a country.
An entrepreneur is a person who initiates a new business, bearing the majority of the risks and earning a significant portion of the rewards.
To put it another way, an entrepreneur is a collection of ideas, creativity, and originality. Furthermore, these ideas and creativity have a significant amount of value, which must be considered and appreciated. That is where intellectual property rights come into play. The massive collaboration of the Entrepreneurship and innovative club of the University of Colombo and MAAS holdings company took on this challenge to share this valuable point with the passionate audience.
Three informative sessions were held online from the 9th of August 2022 to the 23rd of August 2002. These sessions were organized around three major themes:
- Introduction to IP
- Entrepreneurial overview to IP
- Overview of analytics and tools in IP
The first session was conducted successfully by Ms. Anupama Dias Abayagunawardene, Deputy General Manager Legal -Intellectual Property at the MAS Holdings Group. The entire session was mainly aimed at providing an outline of intellectual property rights and how they can be used to protect your own creations and ideas. This was the initial step in the meaningful session series, and many enthusiasts were involved in this meaningful hour. How our ideas and creations can be monetized, benefited from, and protected legally, as well as how all Sri Lankan laws align with IP rights, were clearly described. These intellectual property rights may be related to not only business but also to our regular lifestyle. Important keywords were introduced to the audience with clear explanations such as Patent, Trademark, Copyright, Trade secret, etc.
E.g.;
- COPYRIGHT – Roald Dahl is the author and the copyright holder of the book, Matilda.
- TRADEMARKS – As of June 2022, Apple trademark value is 947 billion U.S. dollars
The second session was conducted by Mr. Angelo Karunaratne, a Technology Entrepreneur at future works twinery by MAS which made it easier for our university students to succeed as young entrepreneurs on their journey. Our guest speaker clearly explained the key IP elements associated with each stage of the project life cycle and how anyone can use IP rights to commercialize their product by mentioning his own experiences. As we hope to convert our business idea or technology idea into an entrepreneurial work environment, a solid IP strategy will create a particular space and mark the territories in the business platform which is very beneficial. He concluded by mentioning that as university students, we are full of innovative ideas, and it would seem that this is the time to stand up with our own strength and serve our future and our country.
Overview of analytics and tools in IP was the theme of the final session which was conducted by Mrs. Kaushalya Perera, a Technology Entrepreneur at IP analytics twinery by MAS.
During that golden hour, she was emphasizing on patent search and IP tools to protect your own created IP. What exactly is IP analytics? analytics is use of patent data to make informative decisions for your business. This will assist you in connecting with your competitors, and through patent searching, we can become aware of upcoming product trends, emerging players in the business world, demand for a specific product, and so on. She also mentioned important patent resource links that will be advantageous in our tasks, and the session concluded with a patent search activity.
All of these sessions included a Q/A session, which allowed for more interaction with the audience. Many interesting questions were raised on stage, proving that the project was successful and informative to the audience.
It’s an impressive thing to say, and all of the guest speakers were eager to share their experiences and knowledge with our own young entrepreneurs. Also, the Entrepreneurship and innovative club of the University of Colombo is always hoping to give its best support and resources which help to entrepreneurs who are in any level of their journey.
As Albert Einstein once said;
“Creativity is seeing what others see and thinking what no one else ever thought.”
And that creativity must be protected by using our own actions while adding the right value to it.
Success is a combination of ideas, planning, strategies, innovations, analysis, and hard work .Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.
Article Credits To Our Blogger: Ashimi Rathmalgoda; (Faculty of Science | 2nd Year Student)
