ISLAMABAD: Aspiring entrepreneurs should focus on innovative products to maximize business growth and achieve sustainable progress in business field, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Shaikh Amir Waheed said on Saturday. He was addressing ‘Business Clinic’, organised by the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) in collaboration with ICCI under Global Cleantech Innovation Programme (GCIP). “Promoting innovative ideas and their commercialisation should be promoted, especially in the field of clean technologies. They offer great prospect for growth and aspiring entrepreneurs should come up with innovative solutions to excel in business field,” he said. He said that industry badly needed innovative solutions in various fields including waste water treatment and renewable energy and entrepreneurs should come up with innovative cleantech products to address such issues. He assured that ICCI would continue to collaborate with UNIDO in such programs to foster better growth of cleantech businesses. Speaking at the occasion, Nadia Aftab, the UNIDO country representative, highlighted the role of UNIDO in promoting sustainable industrial development in the country and its inter-linkage with Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) with particular focus on industry, innovation and infrastructure. She thanked all the beneficiaries who travelled from across the country to join UNIDO business clinic and also thanked ICCI for collaborating in this important venture. The two-day ‘Business Clinic’ was an event where the aspiring entrepreneurs came up with the problems in their business models and experts provided them best solutions of such problems. The experts were from the field business and technology with a proven track record of running tech based businesses. Under the programme, the innovators in the field of clean technology were encouraged to commercialize their innovations so that the businesses, society, and economy could be benefited from environment friendly innovations. UNIDO provides all necessary support like training, capacity building, access to capital to the innovators and helps them in launching businesses based on their innovations. The business clinic was part of the capacity building of teams and to discuss issues in business models where they were mentored by the experts of business and technology. Published in Daily Times, October 22nd 2017.