The Business Studies Department, represented by Mr Mohammed Al-Sakiti and Mr Manikandan, participated in a three-day workshop on “Entrepreneurial Mentoring” from 25 to 27 February 2018 in the head office of Bank Muscat. The workshop was part of the Certified Entrepreneurship Educator (CEE) Programme, organized by the SME Development Fund, to spread an entrepreneurial culture among academics. The workshop was delivered by Prof Kevin Hindle, the CEO of Mentor Entrepreneurship Group (Mentreg). He has over 30 years of experience in the field of entrepreneurship, has published around 90 research papers, and has become a theorist of entrepreneurial business planning and process.
On the first day of the workshop, different topics were covered, including the theoretical bases of entrepreneur mentoring, building mentor teams, mentoring case studies, and the EPIC (Evaluation, Personnel, Implementation and Context) system. The second day of the workshop emphasized different categories of mentors, including transformers, nurturers and tacticians. At the end of the day, there was a practical mentoring between participants, who acted as mentors, and real entrepreneurs, who acted as mentees. On the third day of the workshop, the participants were divided into four teams to evaluate business opportunities by using Business Evaluation Calculus (BEC) software. Adding to this, Prof Kevin explained some key issues that academicians could face in mentoring, such as gender differences, and suggested some techniques to address these issues.
Commenting on this workshop, Mr Mohammed Al-Sakiti expressed his satisfaction by saying “We have gained much knowledge on the key skills of entrepreneurial mentoring, teaching, and coaching. We will do our best to apply these good practices while teaching the course “Entrepreneurship”. The last module of the CEE Program will be delivered in May 2018.