Daily Times

In a bid to build stronger connections between tech diaspora in the US, and tech talent in Pakistan, Pakistani American and OPEN Seattle tech delegation, visited the National Incubation Center Lahore (NICL) at LUMS. The delegation comprised of technology executives from Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Educative, Leverify, and Data Science Dojo, looking to understand the growing entrepreneurial landscape in the country and pave the way for future collaboration.

The guests were given a tour of NICL facilities including the Makers Lab, a suite of state-of-the-art prototyping workshops; the Facebook Innovation Lab, where virtual and augmented reality solutions come to life; and a co-working space, featuring a plug-and-play set-up. They also exchanged detailed insights with Foundation Council members, and the faculty and team at NICL.

The visit will help promote collaboration and mentorship opportunities for Pakistani start-up founders, as well as technology transfer for scalable impact. The start-ups currently enrolled in the incubation programme had the opportunity to engage with the delegation and garnered interest. These range from enzymes production, AR- enhanced textbooks to enrich learning, a crowdfunding platform, online coding school for children, to gamification of physical fitness.

“It’s heartening to see the rapid growth in Pakistan’s technology space and startup potential” said Moazzam Chaudhry, who heads Product Management at Google Cloud and is the President at OPEN Global. “There is no dearth of talent and potential in Pakistan; I’ve met some start-ups today at NICL, and am impressed with their serious passion and maturity even at the early stage!”

Presenting his vision for NICL, Chairman Saleem Ahmad, stated that, “solving Pakistan’s biggest problems requires extraordinary human capital development. We are committed to doing our part in bridging the skills gaps needed to not only sustain the growth of our nascent start-up ecosystem but also create viable career opportunities for our abundant youth. Equally importantly, we aim to help local industry innovate to enhance industry productivity and global competitiveness”.