BAHIR DAR UNIVERSITY

BAHIR DAR INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY OF CHEMICAL & FOOD ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR ENGINEERS
INDIVISUAL ASSIGNMENT

PREPARED BY Kalkidan Admasu

ID NUMBER ……………….. BDU0800926UR

STREAM …………………. Environmental Engineering
Section……………………..... B

Submission Date: 26/ 04/2013

BiT, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
1. Describe in detail about intellectual property right and include in Ethiopian context.
 Intellectual property rights are rights given to a person over the creation of their minds. They
usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creation for a certain period
of time. There is an established legal regime for the protection of intellectual property right in
Ethiopia. One aspect of protection intellectual property right is patent. Patent is intended to
protect originality and creativity of a person/company. The patent law of Ethiopia regulates
inventions, minor inventions, utility models and industrial design. Inventions is patentable if
it is new, involves an inventive step which is not obvious and capable of industrially
application. Discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods, treatment of human,
surgery or therapy are not patentable. Patentees have the right to make, use or otherwise
exploit the patented invention. Inventions which have not been patented in Ethiopia, but
patented in a foreign country and not expired are granted patent of introduction upon
application. Trade marks, certification and collective marks and GI are elements of
intellectual property. Ethiopia filed trademark application and secured protection in 30
countries for her coffee. This strategy helped to differentiate Ethiopian coffee from others and
build confidence and improve bargaining position of coffee producers.
2. What is the importance of small business for economic development? Consider
developing countries like Ethiopia.
 Employment potential: Small business is mostly labor intensive; and provides a lot of
employment than big industries. Small business promotes self- employment among educated
and professional class people. It also provides employment to farmers who remain idle during
a part of the year.
 Utilization of latent resource: Latent resources of the nation like savings of the poor and
entrepreneurial skills of the people.
 Equality in income distribution: Small business tends to promote a more equal distribution of
income and wealth in society; because through small business a part of national income gets
shifted to small entrepreneurs and working class employed in small business. Small business
keeps a check on the monopolistic tendencies of the big business and prevents concentration
of economic power, only in a few big hands.
 Balanced regional development: Small business helps in achieving balanced regional
development of the economy. They are also spread around the nation especially in rural and
backward area. As such, small businesses lead to development of backward areas and raise
the standard of living of people of those areas.
 Supplying needs of big corporations: Small business support big corporations by
manufacturing tools, accessories and spare parts. And are also service sectors by providing
services not provided by larger scale. Example like electronic goods and repairs.
3. Select one entrepreneur business found in Ethiopia and study to succession journey.
 Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu is an Ethiopian business women, founder and executive director of
Solerables, African’s fast growing Footwear Company. She was inspired by the Barabasso,
traditional recycled tire sole shoe crafted. She came up with the idea after she noticed most
of the artisans in her community who made the footwear and remained jobless and poor.
Solerables is unique because it is 100 percent made by hand using locally sourced and
recycled material turning waste into product. She started her company from scratch. She
didn’t have a money to start with only passion, so for her to change her vision into a reality,
she used to pinch her idea and introduce her product for every footwear company she could
got her hands on through emails. After 1000 or more emails, one company agreed to buy her
product. Her Entrepreneurial success is due to passion, mindset and responsibility. She
needed to come up with different ideas to keep the company going. She mentioned on her
interview that the first thing she had was only passion but she said she learned every step of
the ways from her challenges. She also said the peoples who supported her played major roles
and her communication skill got better with time not at the beginning. She learned how to run
a successful business for 15 years while running the business. She took an amazing business
idea found locally and brought it internationally. She also mentioned to look at who we are
and where we are and everything is a business idea.