Here’s what happened at Pakistan’s biggest Startup Champions League

NSPIRE – business incubator of Pakistan’s leading IT company, NETSOL Technologies – organized Pakistan’s first-ever Startup cricket carnival, The Startup Champions League, on March 31st.

The Startup Champions League aimed at inciting collaboration and sportsmanship in startups, incubators, and accelerators through a cricket tournament. The sports carnival brought together a number of startups including PlanX, Plan9, TechHub Connect, Microsoft Innovation Center, Social Innovation Lab, LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship and NSPIRE.

The event took place on 31st March 2017 at NETSOL cricket ground. It was a four-over match. Here are the matches’ details:

Knock-out matches

• 1st match: Plan9 vs LCE
• 2nd match: PlanX vs MIC
• 3rd match: NSPIRE vs SIL
• 4th match: TechHub Connect vs MIC

Semi-finals

• PlanX vs Plan9
• NSPIRE vs TechHub Connect

Finals

PlanX and NSPIRE qualified for the final match. PlanX batted first and gave the target of 63 runs. NSPIRE lost the match with one run only and hit 5 sixes in the last over.

Prizes

• Winner: PlanX, 15,000 cash with winner trophy
• Runner-up: NSPIRE, 10,000 cash with trophy
• 2nd runner-up: Trophy only.
• The player of the tournament, Nouman Zubair from PlanX’s team, won signed bat by the renowned cricketer Umar Akmal.

The tournament was unique in multiple ways:

• It was first of a kind sports event within startup community in Pakistan.
• The purpose was to bring all the startups, incubators and accelerators at one platform in a fun-way
• The tournament has multiple celebrity umpires such as: Maria Omar from Women Digital League, Faisal Sher Jan from LCE, Khurram Zafar from LCE, Ayub Ghauri from NSPIRE, Uzair Qadar from Microsoft, Ahmad Hamdhan from Hajeej International, Malik Mudassr from AppsGenii Technologies.

Mr. Ayub Ghauri, Head of NSPIRE said, “We’re so excited to host Pakistan’s biggest startup sport carnival. We feel that all of us working towards one major goal i.e. to make Pakistan’s entrepreneurial ecosystem a success. Events like Startup Champions League, will enable all of us to collaborate and synergize at a different level.”

NETSOL technologies is one of the Pakistan’s premier software development company. NSPIRE helps startups with creative business ideas and it has been designed to meet the needs of tech-based startups in Pakistan.