Startup Weekend happened last week in the capital city, Islamabad. The event gained a lot of traction on social media and despite the fact that a lot of tech events were also happening in Pakistan but this one got the most attention. The event got a huge participation from both students and people in the industry. The participants were highly enthusiastic, motivated and worked on some great and innovative social commercial ideas on the weekend. DEEP were the main organizers of the event, they did a brilliant job with the whole event and we can safely say that this is the best Startup event of 2014 we have witnessed so far.
The judges emphasized the need of such events in Pakistan and appreciated the efforts and ideas of the young minds. Badar Khushnood specifically emphasized the need for entrepreneurial culture in Pakistan. He said
“Changing the mindset of the youngsters from Job seeking to Job creation in Pakistan is very important”.
While Jehan Ara also focused on the same point. She said “We know there will never be enough jobs for young people so we have to make sure that many of them start companies and not only generate revenue for themselves but also create jobs for others”
She also said that “Failure is nothing to be afraid of, it is actually a plus. You get credibility because if you failed you definitely learned something.”
Startup Weekend Islamabad started with 36 Ideas out of which 18 were shortlisted. After excessive brainstorming, lively discussions and edifying mentoring by the judges, to convert these ideas into entrepreneurial ventures, the event came to an end with final pitching by the teams and we got the following best ideas:
- Interactive walk Through Display
- WIN (Women Inspirational Network)
- Energy Production from Slid Waste
- GSM Door Bell (TaLlee)
- Verify for You
- Skill Traders
- Cognitica (Toys vs. Games)
- R Fusion
- MyAlgo (Algorithm Simulator)
- Air Ads
- Touchd
- Energy Storage Device with Hybrid Charging Sources
- Mobipak
- Cloud PoS
- Rent Pay (Har Cheez Rent Pay)
- HFLP (Human Found Lost Platform
- Smart Kids Security Card
The main spotlight of the event were the very lucrative offerings for the winning teams. P@sha offered a grant of Rs. 250,000 for High impact Social Innovation Idea to implement the idea. NUST offered a co-working space for a period of three months to the top three teams by NUST Technology Incubation Center and there were many more by other organizations of Pakistan.
