All active business and political stakeholders at Lake Toba want to see their region develop its full economic and socio-cultural potential more effectively. Among others, Luhut B. Panjaitan, the powerful Indonesian minister of Batak origin just recently (July 2017) presented an investment strategy for Lake Toba, which is based on strong B2B relationships between local and national/international businesses. In order to make this a successful strategy, the current lack of entrepreneurship in the region needs to be addressed forcefully, and local entrepreneurial talents and skills needs to be identified and supported accordingly.

The Indonesian Gap of Entrepreneurship

The Indonesian weakness in entrepreneurship has several reasons:

• For a long time Indonesia was a colony. After 20 years of democracy, a period of 32 years of dictatorship followed. Still, this deficit of self trust, of their own visions, and their own power is a result of this period.

• Indonesia has too many laws and regulations that make it very difficult for Entrepreneurs to start. Every step taken to start an enterprise requires a paper and there are too many pointless laws and regulations that make the process take longer than necessary.

• Often a lot of money must be paid to corrupt government officials in order to receive a license.

• There is still no culture of entrepreneurship in Indonesia. There are no decent NGOs or institutions to help founders.

• The trade with foreign countries is still complicated because a lot of business is required for the importation of goods.

• The diversification of goods in Indonesia is very limited in most branches, which makes it difficult to develop new products.

• The Indonesians are very conservative and not really open to new products, especially if they are produced in Indonesia.

• There are no centers and clusters for entrepreneurship, which is what is needed to start the mental revolution of a society, which designs the country and develops a welfare on the base of ideas of citizens.

  Setting up a Center for Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship needs an environment, a space that serves as an incubator where ideas can grow and be supported. We want to create such a space at the southern end of Lake Toba. There is already the Academica DEL which is a hotspot for creativity and we want to cooperate with them there. At the other side of the lake, there is the new international Airport of Silangit.

For the beginning it needs to be a space where the people that want to create something can come together and share their ideas with one another. There needs to be specialists, moderators, and coaches to support the entrepreneurs. And it needs a place, where students can start with a project.

 

Why Lake Toba needs an STDC?

So the local people of Lake Toba can learn how to create their own products, market them, and sell them. There will soon an influx of tourists coming to Lake Toba. The airport of Silangit became international with flights to Kuala Lumpur. Maybe next year, there will be flights from Guangzhou and Mumbai.

From these places there will be a direct connection to Europe, Arab Countries, and America. We need to prepare now and whoever starts now, will be in front and will take place. Therefore it is a good idea to start now with this. There is one year for the people who want to prepare for this influx of tourists. They just need a starting place for this. For the beginning this can be just a non-frequented hotel.

In the main season, it can then be used again as a hotel. Everybody who wants to create something can go  there in the morning and take place for one day, for one week, for one month or even for a year. Around this is then a structure that supports the new founders. It needs to be an environment that generates a melting pot, where a culture of entrepreneurship grows.

Bavaria, the southern province of Germany, was a very poor place 50 years ago, but then tourists started visiting. The only structure in existence there for visitors was family-run guesthouses and home-stays. The tourists would live at the farms and they would some guests rooms where they could sleep. The Government supported the farmers specifically in two ways:

• The government guaranteed to buy cow milk from the farmers for a good price. The government also made a university for the farmers. These things created a central marketing solution for local milk products. In the mountains, almost all the farmers have cows. Even today, cows and nice grass can be found everywhere in southern Bavaria.

• At the other side, the government empowers tourism with a lot of local events and with a structure to make central marketing for the local culture and the tourism. The government organized most tourist bookings. The government also organized a lot of trainings for the people that host guests.

• Bavaria supports small businesses. There is a culture of establishing and managing a company. Bavaria now has more enterprises than people. That means there are multiple people running more than one company.

• Bavaria took care of the environment. It was the first country to install a powerful ministry for the environment already in it´s 70^th year.

Now nearly 90 % of the pictures of tourists in Germany taken and published are pictures from upper Bavaria: Cows, Mountains, Lakes, Grass, Blue Sky, Music, traditional Bavarian Clothes, and Bavarian food and beer. Bavaria is now the richest province in Germany and the tourism is still run by small family companies and the money stays within the country. Almost every farmer is now a Euro Millionaire because of high tech farming, technology, and tourism. Water from each river and lake can be drank from directly again!

Lake Toba has a huge potential, if the structures get established to develop it. The first steps are done. Lake Toba now needs:

• A powerful BOPDT

• A long-term master plan to develop sustainably

• A structure of entrepreneurship that will support a sustainable development of local businesses

• To learn from rest of the world with B2B partnerships, which are based on local companies that work together with international partners. Empowerment of the Local people needs to happen in order for this to take place. They need to have the self trust necessary to look for foreign partners.

  What are the requirements for an effective STDC?

• It needs to be a place where people can meet in a supportive environment. It should be somewhere where the people get an inspiration of a place, where Entrepreneurhsip take place.  For this can be used for the beginning an existing building to start. This can be the Ecovillage Silimalombu
  

• All the people that want to create a business based on their own vision can come together at this place. The people will sit together with a coach as a moderator. The moderation tech does the mind mapping to help founders organize their ideas. Each founder is then a coach for others. By this, a strategy will quickly become clear and the business can start to be developed. The founders will then already have their first potential consumer group and they can then also provide marketing for the ideas of the others. This is a very powerful and successful set up.

• This place will definitely need a strong internet connection because a lot of research will take place. It will need computers for people to formulate their ideas.

• Around this initial start-up group, there has to also be a structure of support for all the things that cannot be done by the group. It needs:

  • Lawyers to develop contracts and the founding papers

  • Graphic designers for all kinds of marketing

  • A central marketing and logistic chain for all the products

  • Business consultants that know how to setup a business plan and how to contact B2B partners

  • A place where people can work on processing products with producers. Somewhere to develop packaging and manufacture tools for production and maintenance. This will be a white collar and a blue collar workshop.

  • It needs the support of the BOPDT to help generate all the licenses for the products from the local governments. The government regulations have to be standardized and simplified.

  • It needs an employed certifier, who can give the SNI certification.

  • It needs an IT team to develop apps and web pages for all the founders. This could be in cooperation with Academica DEL

A lot of the things will already exist and could be started with the first group of 10-30 people that want to start a business. These people will sit for an initial workshop together for 1 week to generate the 10-20 business plans into a draft for a presentation. Each week someone will present their “Elevator Pitch.” These presentations can take place at a meeting room possibly in the Airport or in Balige. Each month there will be a huge presentation with all the ideas that have the biggest potential or that need support from investors elsewhere. These elevator pitches will be recorded and simultaneously uploaded to YouTube. Then everybody can see them and it is easy to find B2B partners or Business Angels.

All the founders can come each day to the group in the morning and work together with the other people meeting there. The morning will start with sharing ideas, figuring out where somebody wants to go, how they want to get there, and what he wants to do for it today. This morning meeting, on the average, should last about 1-2 hours. After this, it is clear who will be doing what with whom each day.

It will take a lot of help from colleagues to realize everybody’s dreams. Often times, the specialists are already inside the group, but everybody has a huge networking system. Each person in the group knows at least 200 people. If there are now 20 people, they already know at least 4,000 people. And this means everybody can ask someone of the 4,000 people for a solution to any problem. The 4,000 then know another 200 people each. That means this group of 20 people, after connecting only one outstanding person, already has a network of 800,000 people! This is the power of the initial group, which can be multiplied then in so many ways.

Out of this group all the other surroundings can be developed and organized. Then there is an organic growth of an Sustainable Tourism Development Center.

This is the easiest and cheapest way to do this and from the beginning, this center has the power to create a paradise around Lake Toba.

The initial group and all the people in it that want to develop something will have to pay for a day. If this is 150.000 a day, including food and place to sleep, this will be enough, to organize everything. For the initial group, it does not even need money.

For the supporting steps now around to increase power, it needs money to pay the specialists, to purchase equipment for the workshops, and so on. It would be enough to have a budget of 500.000 USD for the first year to start with everything. Then it can go fast, but the budget has to be given to the leaders of the Academy and they can decide where and how to invest. There are often solutions out of the founders groups that are much cheaper than to build something new. For example, there can be a workshop for iron, which can be used because it is already there and the old owner died.

At the other side, it would make sense to invest in something that nobody thought before, but makes absolute sense. For example, to buy a high quality drone for video-graphing.

The BOPDT will be the Supervisory board, where the “Elevator Pitches” of the ideas will be reported. The monthly meeting is also the presentation. The BOPDT is invited for this meeting and will be combined with the meeting of the Supervisory board.

The BODT will already know the best ideas and the people behind them.

The Network of Organizations and People Behind the concept of an STDC

• The BOPDT is the leading organization for it. It is installed by the president to create a structure for tourism alongside the existing government. The task of the BOPDT is to also find new ways to organize the government around the tourism. With this STDC the BOPDT gets knowledge and tools to give to the local government to form more effective structures.

• The KEMENPAREGRAF with the Minister Sandiaga Uno want to develop the Batak Region to a leading tourism destination in the world. He like, that things are getting done. They are interested in a training system.
• AMATI Foundation want to train Entrepreneurs and is looking for places where 100 students can be trained.
• WILMAR University want to train their students in a practical way and want to support Sustainbibility.

• Yayasan Pencinta Danau Toba (YPDT)
  The YPDT is an old and powerful Indonesian Foundation that wants to develop a Welfare Batak Country. The YPDT will support the STDC with their members, knowledge and infrastructure. Sebastian Hutabarat and Tigor Edward Siahaan are in Balige to represent the YPDT.

• Academica DEL
  This Campus University, founded by Luhut B. Panjaitan, is a campus for IT and they want to create specialists from the villages. With the help of the Academica, a lot of things can be developed. For the students, the STDC is a possibility to develop their own businesses. Ratnauli Gultom already holds a workshop for entrepreneurship.

• Thomas Heinle is a trainer for vision coaching and trained around 2,500 coaches in vision training. He already organized this for hundreds of people at the same time in Germany. He was famous for this and to develop lake Toba, he can give his experience to help. He helped to prepare the meeting with BI and took place there.

• Ratnauli Gultom, she is already a trainer for homestays and created the own homestay at the family land on Samosir. She will take place in an organisation like this. Also she knows a lot of people and she has a powerful spirit.

We can start with this tomorrow in Silimalombu! Already we are doing it in a small scale. It can get huge and give support for all the Lake Toba Region.

The first projects for students, they want to come to start with this can be:

Restructuring the local Government of Samosir for effectivtiy	The new regent of Samosir is a millenial. He like to do a perfect work. He will support, that all the governement employees have to work effective for the owners of the region, the citizens. It has to be developed a coaching program for all the Government organizations, that their first aim is to save money for government by working as effectiv as possible for the citizens to give the government the possibility to decrease taxes or to use the money in an effective way.	4	Social dan Politics
Cable Cars	It is the planning to create a cablecar System around Samosir with more then 100 km. For this it needs around 350 towers. The towers are the most expensive part in building the Cable Car system. There is the idea to sell the right to make a building at the place of the tower . This can be a hotel or a restaurant or a shop or a spa center or or… The right to built it can be sold with a system of biding. For the whole system it needs around 5 trillion rupiah. This money can come in by a biding. There will be enough people they want to have a building like this, where they have on the roof direct access to the cable car. The students can prepare the biding and can execute it. This will be a huge success when they get the amount of 5 trillion or maybe much more in the time of 6 month praktica.	3	Informatics and Economy and Law.
Proof, if the PT. Aquafarm Nusantara fit with the law out of the signing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations	Indonesia have to make out of this the law, that water cannot be poluted and have to control it. It needs to complain in juristic way to the United Nations, that the PT. Aquafarm has to stop her operation with floating fish farms immediately and have to pay for all the damage.	3	Law
Refurbish the traditional houses	A lot of old houses getting rotten and can be rebuilt in a traditional but also in a combination with new materials. To combine the young and the old. In europe there are a lot of examples how this can be done successfully. The Batak houses are wonderful for this.	3	Technical, Architecture
Execute the online Marketing for the local producers	Samosir has already an existing online shop for the products, developed by a cooperative and the UMKM. This needs to fill with the local products and needs the marketing, that the consumer can reach the	3	Economy, Social dan Politics, informatics
Distribution of the local goods around lake Toba	The goods needs to go from the producer to the distributors and the customers. It needs an online integrated transport system to get this done.	3	Economy, Social dan Politics, informatics
Create vertical Gardens around houses and walking ways and streets	A lot of plants like to grow up and needs for this support. Like Pumkins, Passion fruits, Wine……If the installations are made, it is very easy to grow with very little afford a lot of fruits and vegetables. Much less work, than to grow on the land. Also for this additionally land can be uses. Houses can get green and produce the own shadow or wind protection. Can be done much more all around Indonesia. Specially for people with less income and no land can produce the own organic food.	3	Agriculture, Architekure
Proof if it make sense and it is possible to make a Batak Province as an independent province	The Batak people have a special spirit and culture. When it is for Acenese people possible to have an independent province, than it maybe make sense also for the Batak society. With this the deep spirit of the Batak can get power again and make the Tourism development of the Lake Toba Area successful. The example can be South Tirol in Italy. Mountain people with own language in Italy. They got the status of an independent province. After being one of the poorest now they are the richest in Italy and have a lot of tourists for hiking, trekking, skiing and culture. It make sense to give back the power to to the regions and empower them. Same to have a Sultan of Yogjakarta it needs Sissingamangaraja XIII	4	Law, politics or Agama
Identify and develop products with the local people in each Kecamatan of Samosir	Samosir has 9 Kecamatan. If there is at each Office of the Kapupaten one place, where the local people can go with their ideas to make a product, the students can help them to get it done.	18	Economy, Social dan Politics
Develop a recycling structure as a business model	Most of the waste of Samosir is just getting burned. But the most things can getting sorted. If it is sorted, then already the waste has a price: Carton, Glass, plastic, electronics, compost, useable or repairable things. In Tomok already is a dealer, who buy this all. This can be organized, that everything is going there and out of this sustainable jobs can be achieved for people, they are working know for the Aquafarm. Just for example to collect 200 glass bottles a day creates already an higher income then at the Aquafarm. Recycling is a huge business worldwide	27	Technical, Social dan Politics
Hospitality training on the job	Working together with the PHRI and Tabo Cottages to train the staff in a basic hospitlity and CHSE	3	Tourism
Building Solar boats and sailing ships	Lake Toba is perfect for a sustainable water sports area. It needs to develop this and bring the local workshops, that they will start to built boat like this. The first examples will come soon and then this boats can be rebuilt in local workshops	3	Techical