LAHORE: The Lums Centre for Entrepreneurship has launched a four-month business incubation and acceleration programme.
The Foundation Business Incubator recently inducted for its second batch of startups. The Foundation Council selected eight teams. Over 35 shortlisted startups were considered for incubation or acceleration at the Foundation and about half were presented to the Foundation Council for final selection.
With the new batch, a few changes have also been introduced based on the feedback received from the previous batch. The programme is now following particular themes of topics, objectives and activities on a weekly basis.
For the first two weeks, the startups completed an entrepreneurship development programme which gave them an initial boost. Following this, they began their regular programme with weekly milestones, sessions by mentors and other activities.
“There was a lot of IT focus in our first batch and I am pleased to see the startups and entrepreneurs choosing to diversify into other sectors also,” said LUMS Centre for Entrepreneurship Executive Director Khurram Zafar.
“Seven out of the eight businesses from the first batch are operational and several are negotiating with investors for funding. We have similar high hopes from our second batch as well.”
This time around, five startups have been inducted in the incubation programme and three startups have been selected for the accelerator programme. The startups for incubation include H&O Solutions, which is a one-stop shop for home maintenance and repair services. Another is AutoGenie which offers auto maintenance service at the doorsteps or nearest workshop.
The third is P for Plan, a comprehensive marketplace that connects individuals and event planners to venues by procuring event management related services.
Scontly is a discount-based, hyper-local, digital marketing solution for businesses and Jewelry Design Pro is an online marketplace for trading digital downloadable designs of jewellery.
The three accelerated startups include Fictive Labs that offers smart home solutions and brings the control and management of electric appliances in homes at consumers’ finger tips.
Additionally, it was joined by Appify Systems that offers easy access to browsing and online food ordering and AH Paper Products that provides recycled paper and packaging solutions for businesses.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 7th, 2014.
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COMMENTS (6)
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Yes, Fictive Lab is an Internet-of-things start-up and for now are focusing on turning homes into smart homes.
Impressive. Keep it up. I specially like the idea of Autogenie and Fictive labs (seems related to the new emerging Internet of Things paradigm).
What is the caption written under the picture of LUMS logo??? doesn't make sense.
There seems to be a mismatch between the caption and the image.
Great work. Every university should have this. Even established businesses and banks should have such programs.
Good initiative..