Discussing the situation of entrepreneurs and relevant stakeholders including the future of incubators and accelerators in Pakistan, panelists on Saturday emphasised on the fact that Pakistan was currently going through a rapid transformation towards digital and technology domains, which required to identify the current problems, upcoming challenges and their solutions.
The panel discussion was organised by PlanX Technology Accelerator, a project of Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) on The Future of Incubators & Accelerators in Pakistan.
The panelists included PITB Entrepreneurship Director Atif Mumtaz, NSPIRE Technology Incubator Head Ayub Ghauri and University of Engineering & Technology (UET) Incubator Programme Manager Farhan Riaz who proposed solutions to the challenges being faced by the stakeholders.
Atif Mumtaz spearheading the entrepreneurial projects of PITB including Plan9 and PlanX, highlighted the past achievements of PITB entrepreneurship wing and said that both Plan9 and PlanX projects have now become a common name among university and college students and since there were lack of jobs in the market, so the students have started thinking of their own business ideas in the shape of startups right from the student days, which was a big achievement since this has helped tackle the issue of unemployment in the country and it was encouraging that the investors were supporting such ideas and playing key role in promoting entrepreneurial activity.
Ayub Ghauri opined that along with more facilities like incubators and accelerators, it was also important for young Pakistani startups and entrepreneurs to think out of the box particularly during the product development stage. “This out of the box thinking could help identify sustainable business ideas which can run in the long run,” he said.
UET Incubator Programme Manager Farhan Riaz gave examples of successful startups and entrepreneurs who have gone through incubators and accelerators and highlighted the importance of learning especially from failures.
With concluding remarks from PlanX’s Mughees Tahir that entrepreneurs were likeminded people with similar goals and even similar problems, he said Pakistani startups should help each other out for the growth of the ecosystem.
Published in Daily Times, September 7th 2018.