Daily Times

Team Cell hosted Islamabad Semester for SMEs, a residential advanced training Bootcamp for 49 beneficiaries SME leaders at National Incubation Centre.

According to the press release, the Bootcamp was attended by selected 49 SME leaders of 13 project districts from all across Pakistan. As per project’s mandate 2 US-based trainers, Michael Henderson and Ali Syed who are associated with Capital Factory an Austin Texas-based accelerator trained these beneficiaries on the best practices of scaling a business to the international market and also discussed the prospects of bilateral trade and people to people ties between Pakistan and US.

Mentors from the Pakistani entrepreneurial ecosystem including Madiha Hamid, Javeria Yonus, Naima Ansari and Zeea Hassan also gave sessions to help mentees understand the learnings in the local context. Our training partner DEMO – Ideas for Impact helped trainees in learning advanced techniques for effectively using digital platforms for scaling a business. Visits of Business Incubation Centres were also planned for the ISSMEs’ cohort. The trainees visited the Bahria Innovation Centre at Bahria University Islamabad to learn about the facilities space is offering and its contribution to the overall entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Scale grant worth $30000 (in total) was also awarded to 17 SME leaders, the winners were selected after rigorous three-layered scrutiny. This money will help the beneficiaries in scaling up their business ventures.

A social evening (Qawali performance) by renowned Bakshi Brothers was also hosted in collaboration with KNCT during the week.

The weeklong Bootcamp was not only great networking and learning opportunity for project beneficiaries from marginalized communities but also a great source of the local and international cultural exchange experience.

CELL is a project of Shaoor Foundation for Education and Awareness generously funded by the U.S. Embassy Pakistan.