After successfully completing the 3rd FI semester at NIC Karachi, the Directors at FI Program at NIC Karachi Chapter are launching another Cohort of FI Program for the 5th and 6th cohorts of NIC Karachi.
The program will be building the capacity of 9 carefully selected startups namely:
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Muhammad Umer - Faaizy
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Syed Waqar - FreshSabz
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Muskan Siraj - Sewistic
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Muhammad Aqib Mughal - Usedeals
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Salar Gajani - Daryah
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Mushtaque Ahmed Sangrasi - Thar Carpets and Handicrafts
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Sadaf Sajjad - Fruges
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Farhan Ahmed - Gabitt
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Omar Hayat - Kar Muqabla
and they will be mentored by the industry leaders and veteran entrepreneurs listed below:
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Veqar Islam - Director and Chief Executive at Jaffer Business Systems
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Samar Hasan - Founder at Epiphany
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Muhammad Humair - Group Chief Financial Officer at Dawood Hercules Group
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Habibullah Khan - Founder and Director at Penumbra Digital
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Barrister Ahmed Uzair Basra - Partner at AUC | Law
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Moazzam Kamran - Director Business Transformation at REDtone Digital Services
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Jawad Khan - General Manager Sales at ABM Info Tech (Pvt.) Ltd.
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Faiha Salahuddin - Chief Human Resources Officer at ICI Pakistan Limited
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Imran Azhar - Founder & CEO at AzCorp Entertainment
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Hassan Bin Rizwan - Co-Founder & CEO at SABAQ
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Furqan Kidwai - Founder and CEO at Dawaai
Expectations of the participating startups from the program:
“My expectation is to learn the most effective way to manage the myriad of challenges that start-ups face in the launch phase. Very often, I find myself tackling problems on the fly after they arise. The FI program and the mentor could be a good place to think through these issues systematically and help me in becoming more effective and mindful at leading an organization. In particular, I would like to learn more about negotiating and marketing.” - Omar Hayat - Kar Muqabla
“My expectation is to learn how to become a unicorn startup, revolutionalize the fresh produce industry by disrupting the norm!” - Syed Waqar - FreshSabz
“I want to learn how to build my company from the bottom-up and what are the dos and don’ts of startups in Pakistan. I also want to acquire effective and budget friendly techniques for customer acquisitions and want to understand the processes of defining and implementing a great company culture.” - Salar Gajani - Daryah
NIC Karachi FI Chapter Directors’ opinion about the program:
“NIC Karachi is proud to implement the FI Curriculum for its startups. This curriculum plays a vital role in building and scaling up the entrepreneurial ventures of our startups.
The advantage of this curriculum is the day-to-day exercises and assignments that the founders have to complete in order to advance through the program, and in turn, these activities build the entrepreneurial acumen of the participating founders.
In addition to the 14 curriculum sessions that are lead by industry leaders and serial entrepreneurs, the program also conducts around 12 working group sessions which are lead by the chapter directors, during the working group sessions the startups discuss their challenges and find their solutions by brainstorming. This, in turn, creates a blended learning model, which greatly improves the effectiveness efficiency of the founders and their startups.” Program Manager, NIC Karachi - Syed Azfar Hussain
“We want to use the FI program to accelerate the pace of the startup ecosystem of Pakistan as compared to the Silicon Valley our ecosystem is at a very early stage, but by building the capacity of local entrepreneurs we can transform the economic system of Pakistan from Factor Driven Economy to Innovation-Driven Economy.” - Manager Monitoring Evaluation, Learning and Development NIC Karachi - Andeel Ali
About NIC Karachi:
NIC is a state-of-the-art business incubation center launched in 2018. NIC Karachi is funded by Ignite – MoITT, it is operated by LMKT and it is based at the NED University of Engineering and Technology.
NIC is created as part of the Ministry of IT and Telecom and Ignite’s vision of utilizing the nation’s youth bulge which comprises of about 60% of its 200 million population in the 15 to 29 age group and represents an enormous human and knowledge capital.
NIC Karachi aims to incubate over 200 next-gen businesses in the first 5 years and intends to empower aspiring entrepreneurs to create high-growth and sustainable tech and tech-enabled businesses.
To date, NIC Karachi has incubated 6 cohorts comprising of 130+ startups who inturn have generated 8 hundred million PKR in revenue, raised 3 billion PKR in investment, and created more than 90 thousand jobs. Furthermore, this project has also empowered more than 52 female founders, built the capacity of 400+ entrepreneurs and Graduated 36 Startups that met its strict criteria of ethical and transparent character, entrepreneurial capability and demonstrated positive business traction.
The vicinity also serves as the hub to organize the local entrepreneurial ecosystem and as a community-building platform for the civil society organization to date NIC Karachi has facilitated more than 300 training programs, seminars, and webinars.
