Global Entrepreneurship Week Pakistan has focused in 2013 on promoting innovation and entrepreneurship across multiple sectors, inspiring thousands to look for new possibilities even in areas that are less visible during GEW like agriculture. The world is moving into a knowledge economy and it is our creative innovators who will bring solutions to the most pressing challenges. Pakistan’s campaign this year expanded beyond increasing awareness of the power of entrepreneurship and explored new and interesting paths.
GEW / Pakistan broke all artificial barriers in entrepreneurship thinking while reaching students across all disciplines. It also reached entrepreneurs at different stages, whether those just starting to consider an entrepreneurship experience through the series of Build-A-Business workshops in Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi; those ready to test prototypes with the help of ecosystem players like Plan9 - PITB's Tech Incubator; or those looking for ways to scale up with opportunities available through networks like Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) and programs like theMIT Enterprise Forum of Pakistan’s Business Acceleration Program, and the Pakistan Private Investment Initiative, which helps with access to the equity finance.
Below are a few of the highlights from this week’s activities.
Entrepreneurship in Communications
The Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) in Pakistan offered a blogging training session for University of Karachi students in the department of Mass Communication. The aim of the session was to give young bloggers the skills they need to become more effective citizen journalists, understanding complex issues and writing substantive content on political, economic, business and social issues in Pakistan. In doing so, CIPE was also seeking to encourage these students to take a more entrepreneurial approach toward building their own careers.
Hammad Siddiqui, CIPE Pakistan Deputy Country Director, who conducted the training session, offered insights into how blogging and social media have changed the world’s perception of the news. He noted that people use social media to track instantly what “has happened, is happening and might happen,” and that social media has become a key tool to get, process and publish information. For instance, more than 10 percent of CNN’s business comes from social media.
Communications is a field that has experienced entrepreneurial innovations, like blogging, and will continue to experience it. But communications is also a driver of innovation in other areas. As CIPE Pakistan Country Director Moin Fudda told the participants, Pakistan faces a range of challenges, including energy shortages, unstable security, and poor governance; but the biggest challenge might be a growing population coupled with high unemployment.
Entrepreneurship in the Sciences
The National Academy of Young Scientists (NAYS), one of the leading young scientists’ organization in Pakistan, led discussions on how entrepreneurship applies to a wide range of fields—including biology—and academia in general. Its 3,500 participants were lured by the NAYS platform for collaboration and exchange of innovative ideas in multidisciplinary science domains. Its members receive advice from a council comprised of highly qualified professors with industry linkages.
The University of Agriculture Peshawar hosted Dairy Science Park, the second international workshop on agricultural technologies from November 18-20, 2013. To celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week and the opportunities in agriculture related start-ups, Dr. Faisal Khanfrom GEW Pakistan's partner organization Peshawar 2.0, shared his ideas on the need for an entrepreneurship curriculum, even for agriculture students. “You should be able to commercialize your final year project as soon as you graduate,” he stressed. “A cluster of startups around university campuses will not only create jobs but can be a driving force for Pakistan's economy.”
A Maker Movement in Pakistan
Edwardes College in Peshawar took part in the worldwide celebrations of Global Entrepreneurship Week with a session focused on the do-it-yourself (DIY) trend on November 21, 2013. Students from across disciplines gathered for the Startups Unplugged talk with Bilal Ahmad, faculty member at Edwardes and Campus Lead at Peshawar 2.0. As a passionate advocate of entrepreneurship and a champion in capacity development initiatives for young people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Bilal encouraged college students to become passionate learners through a DIY model of learning. Participants discussed case studies of young people starting startups like smart phone apps, hand-made shoes and accessories businesses.
Accelerating Hardware Innovations
A Google Glass Demo hosted by Moftak Solutions for GEW participants at Roots Millennium School offered more than 150 students a first-hand experience with wearable computing. One of the latest breakthroughs in technology world, Google Glass is a wearable computer with an optical head-mounted display and Pakistan’s Moftak Solutions was one of the fortunate companies to get the first version of Google Glass—only 2,000 glasses sold initially. This weekend, Google announced its talks with a major manufacturer of glasses frames to distribute in the near future.
Moftak Solutions follows a global trend where established companies show interest in startups. This Pakistani company owns the Jump Start Pakistan initiative, which is providing a platform for young entrepreneurs and students to take their ideas to the market.
Our Pakistani partners did an amazing job at encouraging their youth to take the plunge. As software entrepreneur Ammar Awan told a GEW audience at Cecos University on November 21: "Think your idea is awesome? It's worth nothing if you don't execute it. It's worth nothing if you don't test it in the market. So get out there, and make your ideas happen."
I echo the messages like these that were delivered in the framework of GEW this week in Pakistan. Innovative thinking—and action—has the potential to unlock great economic prosperity and stability for Pakistan.