CIRCLE Pakistan organized the orientation session of the global start-up competition She Loves Tech. champ entrepreneurs, mostly women, turned up on Wednesday to share their inspirational stories and a lot of business ideas at NED University.
CIRCLE NED is the student sector of Circle which emphases on social enterprise focused on women’s economic addition and guidance through entrepreneurship and leadership development, had announced a contest, also being held at the same time in multiple cities around the world, with its finale in Beijing, China.
The Pakistani winner of this competition will get a chance to participate in a one-week boot camp in September with prospects to network with investors and top notch tech companies in China. Men and women both are eligible for the competition as long as the idea impacts women in some way.
“Circle is planned to give opportunities to women entrepreneurs,” said, director of the Office of Research, Innovation, and Commercialization (ORIC), Dr. Syed Mehmood Hasan at NED University.
Co-founder of CIRCLE Sadaffe Abid, said, all around the world loads of women are making multimillion dollar businesses and it won’t be wrong to say that women are the next growth market. “And the role Pakistan will be great as 52 % of the population here consist of women,” she said.
“Women are an unexploited potential in Pakistan. I had a firm believe that investing in women is an approach to go forward.” — Sadaffe Abid, CIRCLE Co-founder
Madeeha Omer, an emerging marketing and strategy leader from IBM, shared her own story that how she ended up in the technology business. “It was hard for me to even understand technology at university and I consider of quitting several times. But now technology has become a part of me after 11 years in this line. I am in love with technology. It helps diagnosis diseases, helps change lifestyles. As it grows it is changing everything and everybody. We are all associated with technology; we can’t do without it,” she said.
“Today, companies may not be producing massive profits but the experience matters. The profits come automatically. Revenue minus the cost is your profit. Just take a Look at Amazon, look at Uber or Careem. See how these start-ups are impacting lives. It has to do with enthusiasm, which can impel you to where you want to go. Just take the first step and it will happen,” she advised.
Sameer Khan, CEO, and co-founder of Social Champ and OuzelSystems said that one needs to be self-aware and conscious of what you fancy in life and what you love doing in order to form a flourishing company and stay motivated while running it. “Don’t be frightened to ask, don’t be scared to dream and share your success stories with others to keep yourself motivated. This is how we work together and form teams and bring change,” he said.
Arifa Mahfooz, who graduated from NED about seven years ago and now working as a manager software development at Techlogix Pvt Ltd, said that to be working in the field of IT, one needs to be extremely motivated and devoted. “You need to grow the can-do attitude in order to get over barriers. Be patient and be passionate as well. You must have job satisfaction to enjoy your work in order to be successful,” she said.
CEO and founder of E-Learning Network, Sana Farooq shared her startup storyline which is an online platform for vocational education; her start was not even about technology as she studied English literature. “But believing and having self-confidence, making a society of support and being a means of support for other people, got me there,” she said.
CEO of BoloTech, Shanza Khan, who created the world’s first Urdu speech therapy platform, said that her business idea was actually her final-year project at Jinnah University for Women. We pitched our idea at Nest I/O, got chosen and got support, too. In starting, we had an abundance of opposition but everybody is on our side now,” “There was no such software for Urdu speech therapy so we carried one. She said.
Finishing her inspiring story, she said: “I know the fact that girls lose hope easily but always believe in your project and dream big”.
