This Pakistani woman has created an app that could make business cards history

Sometimes, the most mundane things in life can make you hit on great ideas. And that’s how a Pakistani entrepreneur came up with an app that makes exchanging contact details easier.

“One day I was sitting in an airplane and needed to call a contact I had met the previous week. I remembered having taken their business card only to realise that it was sitting at my office desk.  I then tried to look them up online on LinkedIn in vain.  At that time, I realised there was no quality professional information exchange mechanism aside from pushing paper,” Amna Shah told The Express Tribune.



And that's how she came up with i-Card. The app lets users create a business card and generates personalised QR codes. They can then exchange information with business associates. Contact details remain updated even if users change designations, numbers or addresses unless one is blocked. Altogether, the app promises to be both, an environment-friendly initiative and an easier way to share contact details.

Users can login from anywhere in the world, even if they've lost their phone or switched models.“i-Card gets rid of business cards, lowers costs, saves the environment and makes managing contacts a hassle-free affair,” Shah says.

Currently based in the United States, Shah is living proof that a girl from a middle-class Pakistani family can achieve anything if she sets her mind to it. She moved to the US in 2000 after completing her O Levels from Karachi's Dawood Public School. She obtained her bachelor's and master's in business and graduated summa cum laude. She was also the first Pakistani female CFO of  SBS Worldwide at the age of 24. Shah then went on to establish her own company, AHS Consulting.



“There is nothing in the world beyond our reach.  I personally faced a lot of obstacles. These included emigrating to the US after high school and obtaining a full-time job while studying simultaneously. But, I defied the odds and reached for what I wanted my life to be like.”