Beyond the Certificate: What 20 UniSZA Students Taught Me About Entrepreneurship

By Coach Amirul Iskandar Mannan

On 9 October 2026, my article “Daripada Kemahiran Kepada Pendapatan: Peluang Melalui Usahawan Tutor Online” appeared in Utusan Malaysia.

Alhamdulillah.

Seeing the article in print felt meaningful, especially after the long Usahawan Tutor Online (UTO) journey.

But the real story is not about getting published.

It is about what happened inside a classroom at Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA), and what that experience could mean for thousands of other students.

An idea that started years ago

UTO began in 2022 through an initiative involving Yayasan Wiba Prima and Drawzania.

The idea was straightforward.

What if we could help someone learn a visual skill, teach that skill to others, and turn it into a potential source of income?

Through collaboration with UniSZA's Pusat Pemindahan Ilmu dan Pendidikan Berterusan (P2P), UTO developed into a Senate-recognised professional certificate programme.

In September 2026, we finally delivered the first professional certificate cohort.

Twenty students from UniSZA's Faculty of Innovative Design and Technology (FRIT) joined us for five days.

For Dr Ruzaimi Mat Rani and me, the challenge was not simply to deliver an interesting training programme.

We wanted participants to experience something real.

From learning a skill to finding a customer

The students began by developing their visual and drawing capabilities.

Then we introduced the business challenge.

Who would you teach?

Why would someone want to join your class?

What would you offer?

How would you promote it?

And most importantly, would someone actually register?

The students formed nine teams and began building their small teaching businesses.

They created offers, developed marketing materials, and reached out through social media and their personal networks.

Some found interested customers quickly.

Others had to improve their messages or approach more people.

Seven teams ran paid classes, while two started with free classes.

Both approaches provided opportunities to learn.

A paid class tests whether customers are willing to exchange money for the value offered.

A free introductory class can help a new tutor gain experience, understand learners, and build confidence.

Neither approach guarantees future success.

But both can help someone begin.

The moment learning became real

One of my favourite moments was watching the students present evidence of the classes they had conducted.

They were no longer talking about a hypothetical business.

They had taught real people.

They had experienced the pressure of preparing lessons, communicating with participants, and delivering something they had promised.

They also discovered that entrepreneurship involves much more than creating an attractive poster or writing a business plan.

You need to understand people.

You need to communicate.

You need to earn trust.

And you need to deliver value.

That is why I believe application must be part of the learning process, not merely an activity at the end of a training programme.

Technology makes the journey easier

One important difference between launching UTO in 2022 and delivering it in 2026 is the accessibility of AI.

Today, students can use AI to explore ideas, prepare marketing content, improve communication and organise their business activities.

That can reduce the time and effort required to get started.

But AI is not the hero of the UTO story.

The students are.

AI can help produce a poster, but someone still needs to understand the customer.

AI can help prepare teaching materials, but someone still needs to teach.

AI can suggest ideas, but someone still needs to make decisions and take responsibility.

As I often share in my programmes, AI can help with the Bits, but humans must own the Bricks.

The opportunity beyond UniSZA

What excites me most is the possibility of giving more young people access to experiences like this.

Imagine students discovering that a skill they already have, or one they can learn through a structured programme, could be valuable to someone else.

Imagine a student conducting a small class during the weekend.

Imagine that first experience developing into regular teaching, additional income, or perhaps a larger business.

Not everyone will become a full-time entrepreneur.

And that is perfectly fine.

The objective is to create options.

For students from lower-income families, those options may be particularly meaningful.

This is where universities, foundations, zakat institutions, corporate sponsors and community organisations can play an important role.

We already invest in helping young people gain knowledge and qualifications.

What if we also invested in giving them structured opportunities to create value in the real world?

And what if we followed up after 30 and 90 days to understand who continued, what they achieved, and what support they still needed?

That would help us move beyond measuring attendance and satisfaction towards understanding meaningful outcomes.

The next chapter

I am grateful to Dr Ruzaimi Mat Rani, Yayasan Wiba Prima, Drawzania, P2P, FRIT and the UniSZA team for making this first cohort possible.

I am equally grateful to the students who were willing to try.

We cannot yet say how many will continue teaching or eventually build sustainable businesses.

That journey is still unfolding.

But we can say they have experienced something important.

They have taken an idea into the market.

They have taught real learners.

They have begun discovering the value of their capabilities.

And for me, that is a meaningful first step.

The question now is not simply whether we can deliver another UTO programme.

It is how many more students we can allow to begin.

If your university, foundation or organisation is exploring practical student entrepreneurship and income generation initiatives, I would welcome a conversation about how we might create more opportunities together.

Because education should not only prepare people to find opportunities.

It should also help them develop the confidence and capability to create opportunities.

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This article expands on my Utusan Malaysia contribution published on 9 October 2026.

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