Startup Weekend Islamabad 2015, great ideas, okay industrial representation!

Earlier this week, Air University organized a Startup Weekend at Islamabad – a global event that has already happened in over 120+ countries for about 1600+ times. TechJuice covered Startup Weekend Lahore last month which we thought was a well-organized event, but the quality of pitches and ideas were not as good as expected. On the other hand, the Islamabad event was a complete opposite as participants presented some really nice and innovative ideas. However, it was observed that the event lagged in terms of organization and industry representation.

A total of 38 pitches were presented at the Startup Weekend Islamabad from which 11 best ideas were voted for final pitches and3 best ideas received the prizes. The major event partners of startup weekend Islamabad were LUMS center for entrepreneurship (LCE) and TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs). Other event partners included Ministry of Planning, Development & Reforms, National Institute of Electronics (NIE), BSP (Business for Social Progress), COMSAT’s incubator, Jumpstart Pakistan, ACI etc

The organizing team for the Startup Weekend included Ms. Fazaila Ali Qazi, Faculty member at Department of Business Administration, facilitator Haseeb Riaz, AU Sha’oor Society, volunteers etc.

11 Pitches & Winners

1. Clear, Clear Nutritional Water: A portable Water filtration device providing clear nutritional water.
2. Booksbay.pk: An online platform for book selling, exchange or cloud sharing.
3. The Third Space: A dedicated workspace for students to hang out casually for privacy or group activities etc.
4. GIF Sports (1st Position): This startup will provide live sports clips to smartphone users, but the clips will be compressed into GIF Images and pushed to a smart-phone.
5. Security Through Inks: Nowadays, one of the major issues faced by people are to deal with duplication, illegal printing of documents and ballet papers. This startup has manufactured a special kind of ink that proves originality and patent of a document through embedded codes into the document. These codes can be detected only with special instruments.
6. SmartBuilding: Control your world with a Smart Home Automation.
7. Multi-solar Solution: This startup envisions to make small solar power plants.
8. Bio-Electric: Bio-Gas plant to produce clean energy/electricity.
9. Snack Pot (3rd Position): This startup wants to deliver hygienic and homemade food at your doorstep.
10. RoolPri : Desi drinks like Rooh-afza packed in tetra packs.
11. Docto app (2nd Position): Cloud search to find and reach the nearest doctor or a blood bank.

LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship will incubate GIF Sports along with acceleration and funding opportunities. In Judges favourites category, Mr. Faisal Paracha from NIE showed interest in incubating Security Inks project while Dr. Amena Hasan, CEO of BSP offered Bio-Electric project a study visit to Karachi at the bio-gas plant in order to further polish their business plan.

Share your opinions on the Startup Weekend pitches in the comment section below.