THE ART OF TURNING GARBAGE INTO GOLD

A true entrepreneur is the man who can transform garbage into goldsomebody who sees
an opportunity and has the creativity to pursue it. Not monetary capital, Indonesia needs
human capital creativity and innovationwhereby our country will create its own
opportunities. Creative innovation should aim beyond making a millionaire of the inventor.
It should hold community needs paramount. Dr Ciputra suggests that Indonesia cannot
wait for chances to come this way; its time to create them.
Able to see but not to understand. Able to understand but not to act. This characterizes our
handling of Indonesian laborers abused and tortured in foreign countries. Dr Ciputra is both
apprehensive and critical of Indonesian reaction to this ongoing tragedy and national
embarrassment.
He emphasized that protests to Malaysia, or other country using Indonesian laborers, are futile.
The core problem is our duty to abolish the deeper roots - which lie in Indonesia. Why are so
many destitute Indonesians forced to other countries to find a job? Why are we so encumbered
by debt that Indonesia cannot afford to invest to advance its own peoples prosperity?
An honest and genuine answer includes admitting failure to build a prosperous Indonesia despite
64 years of independence. Although Dr Ciputra has been involved with education for 40 years,
he realizes that education alone is not enough.
I thought education could solve poverty, one of Indonesias biggest problems. Thats partially
true only minor problems have been redressed through education, Dr Ciputra explains.
He suggests that the roots of our poverty and lack of jobs can be traced to a lack of
entrepreneurship. Indonesian people cannot transform garbage to gold because Indonesian
education only creates worker scholars jobseeker scholars.
Its not just the educators fault. Family and community also contribute significantly in molding a
generation that lacks entrepreneurship. Most Indonesian parents encourage their children to
become an employee. Teachers and lecturers educate children to be doctors, lawyers,
accountants, professors, etc. The community teaches children that having a good job equates
with being an employee of a large company.
Almost none of our children have been educated to become entrepreneurs, Dr Ciputra says.
Indonesian people have mistakenly equated entrepreneurship with mere trading an offshoot of
entrepreneurship. Thus, many entrepreneurial training exercises only instruct in the basics of
trading.
True entrepreneurship involves creating opportunity, innovation, and taking calculated risks.
Entrepreneurship doesnt only benefit business; government, academicians, and community
leaders should all deploy it.

Under colonization, we were trained into a colonized mentality. Regrettably, this mentality has
outlived winning our independence. Theres no lack of will to work creatively, just an
unfamiliarity with it.
Dr Ciputra feels that discipline, morals and ethics the old and established pillars of education
remain relevant to educating todays generation. These pillars need only to be upgraded to better
accommodate more creative and innovative education, and to reduce emphasis on rote
memorizing.
How many lessons that we memorized do we still remember? None! Hence, we should not
waste too much of our brains capacity on memorizing. We need to focus it more on creativity
and innovation, Dr Ciputra explains.
According to psychologist David McClelland, to be considered a developed country, a country
should count at least 2 percent among its population as entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, among 220
million Indonesian citizens, we can only find 0.18 percent who can be called entrepreneurs
around 400,000.
Education cannot guarantee children an occupation. Every year, Indonesia turns out 300,000 new
graduates, and by the end of 2008, 1.1 million university graduates were still unemployed.
This indicates that we lack either job opportunities or scholastic competence. If most of us were
able to provide ourselves with our own job, and eventually create one more, the problem would
be solved.
Education should train children with the competence to create their own job. This job of
educators should involve parents and community in a combined commitment to equip children
with entrepreneurial competence.
Dr Ciputra highlights Peter Druckers reflection that entrepreneurship can be learned. It is not a
mere natural talent nor fate. He enthusiastically spreads his messages about entrepreneurship
throughout Indonesia. He pushes schools to introduce entrepreneurial studies on their curricula.
Namibia is poorer than Indonesia, but trains entrepreneurship in its school from the 8th grade.
Will we wait until our foreign workers and laborers are heading for Namibia to find jobs before
we make our own commitment to train our children in entrepreneurship? The lessons of
entrepreneurship are rapidly spreading through the world. Indonesia needs more than a morning
wakeup call, we should already be bathed, dressed, fed and in action! he affirms. Dr Ciputra
emphasized the need for a drastic mental transformation among Indonesians especially our
youth. Young minds must be open to consideration of the job-creator option as a priority over the
job-seeker option.
Parents shouldnt just raise children to become scholars. Their childrens skill should have higher
priority. The principle rule of entrepreneurship is to be able to think and act out of the box
within the boundaries of ethics and law. We need to feel free to be creative and innovative.

Lester Thurow, a professor of management and economics at MIT for 30 years, says without
entrepreneurs, economies become poor and weak. The old will not exist and the new cannot
enter.
Dr Ciputra dreams that, in 25 years, Indonesia may boast entrepreneurs from Sabang to Merauke,
from across the full spectrum of economic, cultural, educational, social, and ethnic backgrounds.
CA