Entrepreneurial skills take Pakistani girl to global workshop

Gul was selected for her BLISS venture aimed at educating poor girls.


Express November 18, 2011



Two young girls from Pakistan have taken the country’s name across the globe to the Unreasonable Institute in Boulder, Colorado.


The institute annually unites 25 high-impact entrepreneurs, to live and work with 50 world-class mentors in order to pitch their ventures to hundreds of investors in San Francisco and Boulder, according to a report posted on web portal, propakistani.pk.

The fellows obtain legal advice and design consulting and form relationship with up to 20 investment funds and prepare to launch self-sustained, globally scalable ventures that could serve the needs of at least one million people.

One of the two local finalists, Saba Gul, is going to stay under the same roof with 24 other fellows at the institute which is a mentor-intensive accelerator for budding entrepreneurs, founded in 2010.

Gul was selected for her venture BLISS (Business and Life Skills School), which gives and promotes entrepreneurship training for girls hailing from the lower economic strata.

“BLISS provides adolescent girls with education, while simultaneously lifting them out of poverty,” Gul says. “Before coming to BLISS, the girls used to spend 14 hours a day working at carpet looms, now they come to school, learn basic subjects along with embroidery and needlework.” Gul added, “The embroidered fabric is finished into trendy handbags for sale in the global markets, the generated revenue goes back to the girls so that they can support their families while getting educated, so it’s a win-win!”

Gul said that she was troubled by the vast social disparities which were prevalent in Pakistan. After graduating from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a computer science degree, she could contrast herself with millions of Pakistani girls who would not even get basic education. “I firmly believe that the world cannot escape poverty if it does not harness the potential of the 600 million girls that live in the developing world and the first step is to send these girls to school,” Gul insisted.

She said that her enterprise has plans to launch a financial literacy and business curriculum for the girls enrolled in BLISS, which would enable them to participate in other parts of the chain like marketing.

“We are designing a new line of handbags, with assistance from students at the Naqsh School of Art in Lahore. We are also planning to expand our network to other cities,” she said.

She said that their venture enrolled 30 girls in Attock and hired local staff. “Attendance at these schools is now almost 90%,” she remarked.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19th, 2011.

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