Overcoming barriers to developing Indonesia's Small to Medium Enterprise Sector

Monash University proposes an integrated program involving the knowledge sector and emerging SMEs in Indonesia. The proposed interdisciplinary program aims to identify and develop strategies for transforming Indonesia's nascent SME sector. This program complements a previous successful AAF (Round 15) and a proposed companion program (this round) involving Indonesia's knowledge sector. Here we examine barriers and success factors for technology-based enterprises involving Indonesia's preeminent University of Technology and emerging entrepreneurs from the private sector. We will engage discipline experts from Monash's Faculties of Business/Economics, Law, Arts, and Information Technology to identify pathways for sustainable enterprise development. A particular focus will be on entrepreneurship, enterprise development, finance/marketing, intellectual property, law and governance, and gender issues. The program is designed to develop leadership capacity and to establish enduring collaborative relationships among participants and Monash University with shared interests in the broad field of SME development. In particular, it presents potentially powerful linkages between Indonesia's knowledge sector and the private sector responsive to enterprise development and sustained economic and social well being.