Daily Times

CIRCLE has made its presence felt off late by empowering women in the field of technology. It is a one of its kind platform for women entrepreneurs all over Pakistan to showcase their tech acumen through a startup.

The initiative has a humungous following in Karachi but this time, it comes to Lahore on a bigger scale.

To discover the next generation of women innovators and inspire youth, CIRCLE’s team of six women has been traveling by train from Karachi to Lahore. She Loves Tech Lahore round was held at Innovation District 92. For those of you who don’t know, She Loves Tech is the world’s largest start-up competition for women and tech, happening in 14 countries including Pakistan, China, UAE, Singapore, Indonesia, Germany, Kenya amongst others. It is a global initiative showcasing the convergence of the latest trends in technology, entrepreneurship, innovation and the opportunities it creates for women.

The Lahore round kicked off on Saturday with Ambassador Ardi Stoios-Braken from Netherlands, who presented the welcome keynote to a room full of start-ups, youth and leading business leaders.

“The Lahore round of the She Loves Tech shows the ingenuity of young Pakistani women in developing tech start-ups providing solutions for social challenges,” she said.

Top 10 female applicants from Lahore pitched their ideas about how to create social change through the use of tech and tackle some of Pakistan’s pressing challenges. The pitches were judged by leaders in the ecosystem such as NIC Director Faisal Sherjan, Latitude Chief Operating Officer Nusrat Jamil, Amna Quraishi and Sarmayacar Chief Executing Officer Rabeel Warraich.

The two finalists from Lahore are Aero Engine Craft by Dr Sarah Qureshi and Marham by Asma Salman Omer and Farwa Ali. Aero Engine aims on reducing the aviation industry’s influence on global warming by turning emission into artificial rain and making airplanes sustainable. While Second place winners from Marham aim to create Pakistan’s largest online health space, where you can find the best doctors according to how your fellow Pakistanis have rated them.

These finalists will go on to compete in the finals in Karachi at NIC on August 18, the winner gets to go to China for global finals, bootcamp and mentorship. They will be paired with local mentors from the tech industry. She Loves Tech Pakistan is sponsored by Habib Bank NISA which is focused on economic empowerment and financial inclusion of women.

Innovation District 92 Co-Founder Nabeel Qadeer says, “It’s good to see initiatives highlighting young entrepreneurs and encouraging the culture of start-ups for our women. More power to CIRCLE and all the work they are doing.”

Led by Sadaffe Abid, former COO and CEO of Kashf Foundation, CIRCLE is a social enterprise that aims to advance women’s economic participation and empowerment through innovative entrepreneurship and leadership labs, advocacy campaigns, digital skills and research.

Let’s see what else does the platform have under its sleeve.

Published in Daily Times, July 17^th 2018.