Google-powered ‘Startup Weekend’: energizing proud Pakistan drive

KARACHI: Karachi-based technology incubator, The Nest I/O organized ‘Startup Weekend’ to bring together entrepreneurs and industry leaders to collaborate on ideas, polish them and take them to the next level.

Google-powered ‘Startup Weekend’ event is a global campaign, which is organized in over 150 cities all over the world. In Karachi, it was held from 24th to 26th March.

The 54-hour event brought together local entrepreneurs and industry leaders to collaborate on ideas, form teams, and pitch in front of a panel of judges. This year more than 80 attendees came together to form 27 teams, and worked on 60+ ideas ranging across a diverse mix of fields.

During this period all teams were coached and mentored by a number of experts, carefully chosen by local organizers to make sure that all teams made the best product pitches possible.

After four marathon sessions of pitching, team formation, building and presentation, the judges announced the winners.

The winner of the event was ‘Mirror Magician’, a mirror that would take a picture using augmented reality and picture automation, while the runner up was ‘TrashIt’, a composting bin which enables people to dispose off their trash more efficiently.

The second runner up was ‘Gardener’, an online gardening service, which provides gardening services through an App.

A special mention was also given to ‘Auctee’, a real-time auctioning service through secure accounts and ‘Champion Mango’, a service offering premium mangos with great packaging through a variety of distribution channels.

Daniyal Zuberi, the brain behind Mirror Magican, was excited on winning the ‘amazing’ competition. It was a wonderful 3-day journey that started with my idea being rejected and ended up by stealing the show, he said.

The three winning teams were given trophies, while all attendees got participation certificates.

It was fantastic event, here we learned the art of realizing our dreams, said Muhammad Samad, the co-founder of the winning idea.

Sharing her excitement on the successful programme, Jehan Ara, The Big Bird at the Nest I/O, told The News ‘our mission is to empower the next generation of entrepreneurs in Pakistan’.

The panel of judges comprising industry leaders, include Yusuf Jan, Co-Founder of Dotzero; Badar Khushnood, partner at Bramerz; Faizan Siddiqi, Managing Director Interlink Multi Media, a technology services company of the Jang Media Group; Rabia Garib , Co-Founder & Chief Editor at TheNewSpaces; Midhat Fatima, Director at TEXT; Raza Matin, Marketing & Business Consultant - Pakistan at Google; and Talha Izhar, Co-Founder & COO at Bakeware.

The judges seemed contented with the level of participation and the outcome. Yusuf Jan said, I'd say if every weekend was a 'Startup Weekend', youthful energy and passion to innovate and break all barriers and succeed’.

Jehan Ara thanked the partners for supporting the event. We are fortunate to have the support of strong technology partners like ‘Google for entrepreneurs’ whose mission aligns with ours, she added.

[post_gallery]