Over 1,500 projects showcased at StartupGrind

At its first conference held at PNCA

ISLAMABAD: In the first StartupGrind Pakistan conference held at PNCA recently in the federal capital saw participation of more than 1,500 startup owners and ecosystem enablers. Different debate sessions were held with regards to technology's role in the progress and for motivation of youth to acquire technological knowledge. World renowned successful Pakistani entrepreneurs and technologists shared their success stories with the youth in the conference to make them aware of the ways of success. The conference was informed that the volume of Pakistani IT industry is $2.6 billion which amounts to 1.4% of GDP. In Pakistan, there is lot of capacity and capability to increase the IT exports and to strengthen the industry. The first StartupGrind Pakistan Conference's objective is to initiate the broadway discussion in the use of the technology in youth and capacity of the technical advancement, so that the uniform vision of the economic development would prevail in Pakistan. In separate sessions, the speakers discussed in regards to progress of country by using technology and told the ways of making technology the biggest source of progress by way of joint efforts of Startups and technical community. More than 55 speakers coming from Pakistan and abroad and more than teachers and technological experts participated.

The speakers include: Noman Azhar (JS Bank), Raghib Husain , Shabahat Ali Shah Ignite NITB( National Technology Fund), Sifwan Shah  Tsao Thomas, Jamaluddin Bajang, Ali Mukhtar (Fatima & Punchers) Illango Patchamuthu, (world bank group) , Saad bashir ( City of Seattle). Atif Awan, Abdur Raheem Ahmed (SECP), Shauzeb Ali, Majid Khan( Jabberwock Ventures), Mustafa Qandeel (SWVL), Ingrid Johansson( Embassy of Sweden-Islamabad), Magnus Sparrholm (Talk pole), Zohair Khaliq (team Up), Dr. Shehbaz Khan (KPITB), Pervaiz Abbasi (Team Up), Jonas Eichhorst, John Hover, Richard Crowder Bernhard Schlagheck, Ali Jehangir Siddiqui, Zeshan Ali, Umer Malik, Qaiser Naseem, Shoaib Makani, Shahjehan Ch, Dr. Sharah Qureshi, Tafseeul Islam, Bilal Ahmed, Nasrullah, Sara Moosa, Mehboob Ahmed, Yasir Bashir, Faisal Aftab, Faizan Aslam, Khurram Zafar, Hamayun Mazhar, Serena Cheng, Shahbaz Memon, Andleeb Ahmed, Umer Ch, Kalsum Lakhani, Umer Shah, Umer Jelani, Sardar Abu Bakar, Erdem Dereli and Ahmed Khan. 

Published in The Express Tribune, November 9^th, 2019.