Social entrepreneurship

Collaboration between universities and industries enables students to engage with real-time industrial problems

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) and Hult Prize Foundation expressed an interest in working together to promote entrepreneurship among the Pakistani youth. This initiative can provide Pakistani youth with much-needed exposure to different industries. Considering that the Hult Foundation is known for empowering the youth to solve pressing issues through social entrepreneurship, this collaboration can equip students and graduates with the means to tackle the growing social and environmental challenges.

HEC should take this as an opportunity to urge higher education institutes to strengthen industry-academia linkages. Although many universities are already collaborating with public sector organisations, Pakistan continues to lag in research, science, and development primarily because of limited funds and the absence of applied research. In the past, medical institutes have produced products to deal with public health challenges. However, these are rarely released in the mainstream market due to a lack of linkage with the industry and issues with commercialisation. Therefore, before introducing social entrepreneurship, industry-academia linkage should be enhanced as this can improve funding for research.

Collaboration between universities and industries will enable students and academics to engage with real-time industrial problems. Once students have this exposure, the initiation of an entrepreneurship endeavour will further facilitate them to innovate and materialise their ideas. Given Hult Foundation’s past record with Pakistani universities, this initiative has the potential to tackle social, environmental, and climate issues to an extent. Perhaps, the HEC should consider targeting flood-affected and climate-vulnerable regions for social entrepreneurship. Although the initiative aims to strengthen the startup culture in the country, it can introduce social entrepreneurship on a larger scale. Besides ensuring the success of this initiative, HEC must continue partnering with regional and international foundations to create educational and employment opportunities for the youth.