Building entrepreneurs: Students told to find opportunities in scarcity

“It is not always about what you know but who you know,” Honda Centre’s Executive Director Hasan Raza.

ISLAMABAD:

A seminar on entrepreneurial success focused students’ attention on underutilised markets and on finding opportunities amid scarcity and shortages.

Sharing his “philosophy of success” with students at the Roots Academy for Professional and Intellectual Development (RAPID) seminar held here on Tuesday, Honda Centre’s Executive Director Hasan Raza said that problems such as inflation, food and electricity shortages should not be seen as static and innovative solutions should be sought to improve conditions.

Sharing his experience of running a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) station, he said he started suffering immensely due to gas shortages. The desperation led him to remove the middleman and he ended up purchasing an oil subsidiary company. “Though it was a risky move, but it paid off as the quality of fuel improved significantly and ensured a steady flow of gas,” he said.

Raza also stressed the importance of networking, saying “it is not always about what you know but who you know”. He encouraged students to productively utilise networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, among others.

Similarly, MIT Enterprise Forum Pakistan Chairman Azhar Rizvi said that development of services and products for people living underneath the poverty line is an un-tapped market that can reap not only financial success but also socio-economic development for the country. He also said that given the widespread loadshedding, one of the markets that could be tapped is of Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) equipment.

He said his forum is actively working to help students to generate business ideas and focuses on bringing revolutionary business plans in corporate sectors and IT industries.

Riaz Asher Siddique, country director of Narus, a United States based company that provides real-time network traffic and analytics software, stressed the importance of a rapidly growing telecommunication industry.

Cyber Vision International’s Chief Executive Officer Murtaza Zaidi said, “Opportunities are everywhere, you just have to explore them. And only your passion can help in getting them.”

Published in The Express Tribune, November 23^rd, 2011.