Today entrepreneurship has become one of key drives for the development of all the countries in the world and it is very crucial for any economy. The objectives of achieving sustained economic and industrial development, regional growth and employment generation, life support conservation and implementing technological advancements have always depended on entrepreneurial development.
1. Techno-Entrepreneurship
Today entrepreneurship has become one of key drives for the development of all the
countries in the world and it is very crucial for any economy. The objectives of achieving
sustained economic and industrial development, regional growth and employment
generation, life support conservation and implementing technological advancements have
always depended on entrepreneurial development. Cultivating the seeds of young
entrepreneurs always ends up with harvesting employment opportunities, increased
economic indicators, maximizing government revenue and balances social & economic
development of community.
Under this hot topic of entrepreneur development, the concept of “Techno-
Entrepreneurship” is the newest developing trend. Technology entrepreneurship is a vehicle
that facilitates prosperity in individuals, firms, regions, and nations. Therefore it lies at the
heart of many important debates, including those around launching and growing firms,
regional economic development, selecting the appropriate stakeholders to take ideas to
markets, and educating managers, engineers, and scientists.
According the definition given by the first symposium on technology entrepreneurship was
held at Purdue University in October 1970 “Technology Entrepreneurship is an investment in
a project that assembles and deploys specialized individuals and heterogeneous assets that
are intricately related to advances in scientific and technological knowledge for the purpose
of creating and capturing value for a firm”. From 1970 to today with the various types of
developments and evolution, now techno-entrepreneurship became more ICT oriented and
its time form contributors to give a new more IT oriented definition. With all of the above,
when talking about the techno- entrepreneurship it is dominated by a different focuses such
as;
Identifying the antecedents of technology firm formation.
The consequences of technology entrepreneurship
How, why, and when technology entrepreneurship affects the socioeconomic
development of a region
What occurs inside small firms engaged in technology entrepreneurship?
The interdependence between small-firm initiatives and the external infrastructure
that contributes to science and technology advances
2. The field of technology entrepreneurship is in its infancy when compared to other fields such
as economics, entrepreneurship, and management. Technology entrepreneurship involves
specialized human resources, tapping into their skills and ability to collaboratively explore and
exploit scientific and technological change to benefit the firm. For an example using social
media as tool of promoting products same time as a sales platform. Deviating from traditional
distribution channels most of commercial entities using virtual market flat forms to sell their
products. It’s not only self-employed people like cake bakers, online retailers but also the
local giants like ODEL, JKH and multinational brands like Kelly Felder and Dominos using the
same technique.
These technological advancements created a new era of local consumers and created a cyber-
entrepreneurships culture in Sri Lanka. Now it’s an unofficially must requirement for any
organization to maintain a virtual presence. And it became the most popular criteria of
measuring the modernization of commercial activities.
There are many Technology innovations but how many can be converted in to Techno –
Entrepreneurship is the real fact. Technology Innovation is important and it is difficult but
Entrepreneurship is not just about Technology & innovation. It’s more than replacing
technology for production. It’s all about how you manage your business making technology
as the main resource. It’s a broader concept and involves many things and not just technology
innovation. Technology Entrepreneur is one who organize, manages and assumes the risk of
a technology based business enterprise through combining resources, production, finance,
HR, networks, marketing and new products. Example the companies like Virtusa & IFS, what
they do is giving new ICT version for traditional facilitating services such as payroll
management and supply chain handling through ERP systems.
Another direction of techno-entrepreneurship is it has given a new and more recognizable
identity for middlemen’s. In countries like Sri Lanka the party who get most benefits out of
techno-entrepreneurship is the one who is in the intermediaries’ category. Simply the
individuals and firms who connect the producers or suppliers with the end users. Local
ventures like Kapruka and Anythink.lk are online platforms where meets end users and
vendors.
Technology Business Incubation involves the commercialization of science and technology
through newer community institutional arrangements which can be thought of as technology
venturing. Technology venturing is based on creative and innovative ways of linking public
sector initiatives and private sector resources within and across regional and national
boundaries for promoting economic growth. Technology Business Development can foster
corporate and community collaborative efforts, while nurturing positive government-
academic-business relationships. Therefore technology venturing activities within a
community are based on linking four critical factors:
Talent – people (skills or ability to think differently and people from various
backgrounds)
Technology – ideas (innovations and building mechanism with convertible ideas)
Capital – resources (money, tangible assets and networks)
Know-how – knowledge (ability to develop differently and fundamentals)
3. Managing the mutual integration of above four factors and the continuous development is an
essential practice for the sustainability of techno-entrepreneurship. Expanding talent pool,
accelerating the transfer of technology, increasing availability of capital and improving
availability of managerial, technical and business know-how are the required essence for the
continuity of the techno businesses. Anymore it’s not rocket science that managing a
venture. It’s all about individuals’ ability of connecting technology for the business process.
Therefore developing policies and procedures where facilitate the development of techno-
entrepreneurs and spreading required knowledge to combine skills of people who make
things happen and who introduce these innovative concepts , technologies or ideas that have
potential to be commercialized within a reasonable period of time are the main duties of
responsible authorities.