PESHAWAR: The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda) and Bannu University of Science and Technology (BUST) on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding for the establishment of Business Development Centre (BDC) on the campus to build capacity of the SMEs in the region.

Smeda chief executive officer Sher Ayub Khan and vice-chancellor Dr Abid Ali Shah signed the agreement, according to a statement issued by Smeda here.

Under the agreement, the university will enhance contribution to society through knowledge transfer from the varsity to the community. The university will create the BDC with technical assistance from Smeda.

The primary focus of the centre will be to act as a source for regional entrepreneurship support, identify the problems as well as opportunities for youth in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through research and consultation, leading to economic development of the province.

The centre will also create maximum awareness and disseminate knowledge of entrepreneurship for those who have the motivation, drive and potential to organise, set up and manage a business of their own.

The BDC will also organise different capacity building programmes for entrepreneurs of the university, including arranging events also with the aim of promoting the women entrepreneurship and developing primary link between the university and business community for young entrepreneurs.

Smeda will ensure provision of all information and data on its website for the BDC and would also provide ready-made modules for the training programmes and also train some of the teachers in their use; provide technical assistance for the other initiatives, e.g. developing models of entrepreneurship society, incubator, publications etc.

Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2018