KARACHI, Pakistan: The Institute of Business Administration (IBA) Center for Entrepreneurial Development held a business start-up competition, ‘Invent -2019’ at IBA Main Campus in Karachi.
The objective of the event was to foster a start-up friendly ecosystem for young innovators from across Pakistan.
The event attracted over 100 young innovators from eight cities that submitted their ideas under the event’s thematic areas of Health & Agriculture, Technological and information, System Health & Agriculture, Shell Tameer Social and STEM Education and General & Traditional.
For the 35 finalists selected, a series of mentoring sessions and workshops were delivered by industry experts, professionals and seasoned entrepreneurs to prepare the best entrepreneurial potential for the final round.
The final pitch was before a panel of judges comprising subject matter experts from industry, academia and SME sectors.
At the closing ceremony Mr. Habib Haider – Country Head of External Relation, Shell Pakistan Limited said ’My heartiest congratulations to our country’s young talent. It is heartening to see events like these bringing like-minded entrepreneurs together from across the country for greater exchange of innovative ideas and thinking. Shell Tameer has always been at forefront to collaborate with key stakeholders to encourage an enterprise-friendly ecosystem and provide opportunities for young entrepreneurs to contribute towards a brighter and prosperous future for Pakistan.”
Following Mr. Habib, Dr. Farrukh Iqbal-Executive Director Institute of Business Administration Karachi said “Entrepreneurship is the need of the moment for this country and is taken very seriously at IBA, this is the reason we have a dedicated Center for Entrepreneurial Development at IBA where different initiatives are underway to promote the entrepreneurial culture among our youth including certificate courses, summer schools and engaging competitions.”
The winner of the category ‘Shell Tameer Social and STEM education’ was Green Energy Revolution Now, a social entrepreneur creating biogas for rural areas in Sindh to address the reduction of CO2 emissions caused by the burning of wood for cooking and saving more land from deforestation. The Runner-up was a female entrepreneur running a local Air B&B “Lets Home” for the residents of Hunza and Gilgit to earn additional income during the few months of tourism in the country. The third winner “Walk way School” works with students belonging to lower social-economic backgrounds to bridge the gap in the private and public education system and providing a better chance of enrollment in universities.
All three winners of each category will receive token seed money to invest in their hard build enterprises.
