Conducted Workshop 1 of the Mentorship Education Program in the Republic of Uzbekistan

Release Date: 7/26/2024

　The Center for Entrepreneurship Education and Research at Yamagata University concluded an agreement with the Business Development Bank (BDB Bank), a government-affiliated bank in the Republic of Uzbekistan, for the provision of entrepreneurship education. A total of eight mentors from Japan attended the workshop. A total of 8 mentors from Japan visited Uzbekistan and spent 2 days with 24 mentor candidates.

This workshop was an important event as it marked the turning point of the 5-month program.

　While providing two informative lectures to the participants, the teams worked on brushing up their business plans for solving local/social problems. Each team received a total of four mentoring sessions from different Japanese mentors over the two days. By receiving different mentoring from different mentors, the teams acquired a diversity of mentoring methods. The teams usually communicate with each other remotely via Zoom or other means from different parts of Uzbekistan, but by gathering in the same place (Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan), they were able to have more heated discussions face to face than usual. At the end of the workshop, the participants gave presentations on their business plans, and the Japanese mentors pointed out problems with their current business plans, enabling them to find goals for further improvement.

　At the end of Workshop 1, almost all teams were still at the level of business plans based only on hypotheses. As the next step, each team was given a homework assignment to interview their customers and turn their hypotheses into facts for the final event, the workshop, and the event was brought to a close.