Startup Insider Session #8

This 4th of April will be the 8th edition of the Startup Insider Session and 3rd in its series in Islamabad. This brain child of Osama Hashmi (greenwhite.org) in collaboration of PASHA has become the biggest IT social happening of the year. Already the past seven events have attracted sizeable crowds of over 100 people per session. And this time round, it is hoped will be no different.

What is amazing to see the amount of talent out there that is making it happen for the IT industry in Pakistan with little or not support from the government and/or local sources of funding. Most of these startups are a great success not only locally but internationally as well.

What is also amazing is to see such a huge turnout and interest shown by budding entrepreneurs and students. Maybe, one of these sessions will produce the next generation of Pakistani entrepreneurs that will make us all proud.

Time and Date: April 4, 2008 (5:30-9:00pm)
Location: NIIT (www.niit.edu.pk) Campus, Chaklala III, Rawalpindi
Host: NIIT, PASHA and BrightSpyre

Web Link and Online Registration:
http://www.niit.edu.pk/Seminars_workshops/pages/startup/index.php

Startup Insider Islamabad Session

What a wonderful gathering at LMKR for the inaugural Startup Insider, Islamabad Session. At a conservative estimate, I would say at least 100 people showed up at the event including half of them students. Not bad for an event that was only marketed via blogs and email lists. The attendees included successful and budding entrepreneurs running great organizations, there were bloggers and journalists covering the event and professionals not just from the IT sector, but also from the Telecom, Media and Development sector.

The panel included successful entrepreneurs from BrightSpyre (Cogilent Solutions), Scrybe, Trevorsoft (Bentley Systems), Voxel among others. What surprised me the most was the fact that most of the companies on the panel had secured funding through some Venture Capital Fund. In fact, barring one or two, most of them were funded from the Silicon Valley. And quite a few of them were working on cutting edge technologies and beyond.

We had great case studies from the audience as well. We even heard from an enterprising student who had written a highly popular application on Facebook which today has almost a million users. He successfully negotiated and sold it off to another company in the valley from his dorm room in Pakistan! He is now busy launching yet another application on Facebook and already has offers from potential buyers, again from the valley. He asked a simple question from the panel. How can he now secure a bigger place (than his current dorm room) to build these applications in a more professional environment with a bigger team.

Another surprise from the audience was a budding young engineer who had written a wonderful application on the open source platform and had posted it to Sourceforge. And his application was not only being downloaded heavily but people were paying him money to enhance/customize it for them. Hence, he was running a successful one man shop right out of his home in Rawalpindi. And for payment processing, he was using Amaana, another enterprising application coming out of Lahore, which is Pakistan's answer to Paypal.

Osama Hashmi (Green & White) and Owais Ashraf (Bentley Systems) managed and moderated the whole event quite brilliantly. Thank you LMKR (Atif Khan) for hosting this event and treating us to wonderful coffee/tea and appetizers.

It was really pleasing to see active participation of the students as well. It showed that some of them will probably take up entrepreneurship as a career and will forgo the urge to work for another company. Just one observation. The folks on the panel be requested to provide a detailed personal background (education, work experience and why they chose entrepreneurship over employment) and what is so great about their company. This will further enhance the experience of listening to these success stories and understanding where they are all coming from. Startup Insider Sessions will be held once a month in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.

Please check Green & White blogsite for the event details and do attend them if you are in the area.

Startup Insider Sessions: A must attend event

The current economic boom that has gripped Pakistan for the most part of this decade has also had its impact on the IT industry. Many pioneering companies with innovative products and solutions have sprouted all over the country. Among them, BrightSpyre for innovation in introducing online recruitment to Pakistan (a company that I co-founded in 2002). Amaana sort of Pakistan's version of Paypal, Green & White, our own techcrunch to report all the local happenings, PixSense, Scrybe, Orgoo, among many many others.

PASHA, the official trade body, finally has a full time staff (almost 20 years after its creation) and with them comes another innovation, Startup Insider Sessions. Connecting local IT talent with brilliant minds who may want to forego their jobs for an entrepreneurial life. As Green & White puts it on their blog,

“A lot of bright, energetic and passionate entrepreneurs have great ideas but want to figure out how to take their brilliant idea and convert it into a business”

I think this sums up what the sessions are all about. So if you are one of them, make sure you are there.

These sessions also points to another level of maturity that the industry has achieved. We now have our own local stars and entrepreneurs in enough numbers who have ably demonstrated through successful startups that have made it big not only nationally and but also internationally. And interacting with these people will definitely provide the inspiration among many potential young minds to start it on their own rather than seek a job. Maybe, through these sessions, we may find some wonderful new ideas that further fuel innovation within the country.

Startup Insider sessions are organized by Green & White in collaboration with PASHA. All hats off to them for their wonderful effort.

For more information, please visit Green & White blogsite.