Digital Approach to Successful Business Plans in Forestry and Related Fields

Abstract

This paper introduces the KABADA (Knowledge Alliance of Business Idea Assessment: Digital Approach) tool, together with the opinions of young people about entrepreneurship, their skills, and their experience with this tool. The focus is on non-business students who study natural sciences, engineering, and other areas at the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology at Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic. The KABADA tool has been developed and tested by a team of international experts. It can be used by a wide audience, including forester management specialists. This structured, web-based platform is based on theoretical research, relevant statistics, and artificial intelligence insights. It guides entrepreneurs through business idea assessment including challenges and opportunities. The research included survey answers from 60 university students before and after using the KABADA tool. The results show that students are interested in entrepreneurship but do not have the knowledge or experience, or support from the curriculum. The majority of the students had no or very low experience with entrepreneurship, no entrepreneurship training, and had not studied entrepreneurship. After using the tool, students declared that they had a higher knowledge of entrepreneurship and the number of students who intended to become an entrepreneur increased. The tool is available online, free of charge.