Four Pakistani youth win IsDB competition

Transformers Roadshow winners will receive seed capital

ISLAMABAD: The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) has awarded four Pakistani innovators, researchers and entrepreneurs seed capital and business skills mentoring as part of its fifth edition of the Transformers Roadshow competition, held in association with Comstech.

The Roadshow is a global initiative in which applicants are invited to pitch ideas accelerating one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Minister of State for Health Dr Zafar Mirza said the Transformers Roadshow is a very novel idea. He congratulated IsDB for providing this opportunity to young Pakistani innovators to pitch their ideas for addressing one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.  Are we compromising on our digital future?

There is no dearth of innovative and creative ideas in our countries but there is a dire need of directing efforts towards providing indigenous solutions for the problems that we face, and secondly there is a strong need for connecting innovators with entrepreneurs, who can convert the ideas or prototypes into commercialized products or services.

Winners of the competition will receive an invitation to attend the 2019 IsDB Transformers Summit in Senegal. The winners were Dr Osman Hassan, Smart SIM (Health); r Khawaja Arsalan Habib, Short Circuit Fault Localization System (Energy); Hassan Bin Rizwan, Muse Lessons (Education); Rehana Balti, Appricot Processing Strategy (Agriculture).

Teams presented their ideas to a judging panel from public and private sectors including, Dr Hayat Sindi, Chief STI advisor to the President of the IsDB; Yusuf Hussain, CEO, Ignite; Dr Fil Randazzo, CEO and Founder, Leverage Science; and  Lars Kroijer, Founder, Allied Crowds.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 5^th, 2019.