KARACHI – The Shahjehan S Karim Incubation Center (SSK-IC) at the Institute of Business Management, Karachi held the Dr. Ahmer S. Karim (ASK) Cohort-1 Graduation Ceremony on Wednesday. The Chief Guest was Mr. Nadeem Hussain, Chairman, Pakistan Fintech Network and Executive Chairman, Planet N Group of Companies. Four start-ups were awarded graduation that were incubated at the SSK-IC, named in honor of IoBM’s Late Founder President. The ASK Grant Challenge provided business expertise and financial support to the startups. The graduating startups were: Asmeron, Boltay Huroof, Bridge Care, Creative 3D, Nutroforge products and TactonBiotic.
Mr. Nadeem Hussain said that entrepreneurship is about passion and not numbers. One needs to be a serial entrepreneur and be persistent to invest in various businesses. He said that Pakistan’s startup ecosystem is attracting investment while the academia and the government are interested in collaborating with the startups. He added that the pandemic enhanced Pakistan’s digitization journey and the e-commerce market. He advised aspiring entrepreneurs to bring a change to the customer journey, monetize their businesses, and should achieve scalability. He added that entrepreneurs must know about their unit economics and that one co-founder of a startup should be an expert in technology and e-commerce.
President IoBM, Mr. Talib Karim appreciated the efforts of the mentors and startups who worked together to achieve a mutual goal. He said that IoBM believes in creating job creators and the SSK-IC is working to make this happen. Mr. Mehboob S. Karim, Chief Technical Advisor, IoBM, shared the strategy pillars of SSK-IC including infrastructure, capacity building and mentoring, financial viability, tech-enabled ESG innovations, industry and academia linkages, and post-incubation support. During his Welcome Address, Dr. Imran Batada, IoBM’s Chief Technology Officer and Director Center for Information Technology said that startups need to take into consideration four aspects for success. They are the timing of the launch, execution of the plan, idea, and business model. Ms. Momina Butt, CEO, Bridge Care, one of the graduating startups, during her valedictory address appreciated the vision and guidance the startups received from the mentors. She was thankful for the ASK Grant Challenge as it motivated the startups to believe in their ideas and turn them into a reality.
