“START-UP INSIDER” BUILDING ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS – KEY TO SUCCESS FOR PAKISTAN’s FUTURE BUSINESS LEADERS.

ISLAMABAD, 8th May – The NUST Social Entrepreneurship Club (SEC) held a “Start-Up Insider” session” in joint collaboration with Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@asha) and BrightSpyre at the NUST campus of Islamabad to discuss the entrepreneurial business ideas existing in the minds of youth and guide them in transforming their ideas into real market products.

The session featured a panel of successful serial entrepreneurs with remarkable business experience, who lead the audience through a series of evaluations critical in implementing their ideas into successful ventures. The participating business leaders speaking at the occasion included Mr. Shahid Mir, CEO, Systems Research, Mr. Sheheryar Hydri, CEO, Trango Interactive, Mr. Atif Mumtaz, co-Founder, Brightspyre, Mr. Jehan Ara, President P@sha and Mr Amir Jahangir, CEO of SAMAA TV.

The event had a participation of more than 200 students from across the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, who were keen on learning how to re-invent business cycles and how business leaders coup with entrepreneurial challenges starting new ventures. The participants were enthusiastic in understanding the tough process of an enterprise.

Mr. Amir Jahangir spoke on the importance of developing entrepreneurship in Pakistan to inspire youth to achieve maximum potential and play a positive part in the economic development of Pakistan.

Mr. Jahangir applauded the initiative of holding such events as this was a landmark initiative in promoting entrepreneurship and raising awareness about business support. He said that an entrepreneur is a key player in today’s global development within any industry, as this is a person who is willing and able to convert a new idea or invention into a successful innovation.

Mr. Jahangir stated that “Entrepreneurship is often a difficult undertaking, as a vast majority of new businesses fail. Entrepreneurial activities are substantially different depending on the type of organization that is being started and ranges in scale from solo projects - even involving the entrepreneur only part-time to major undertakings creating many job opportunities. However, if you have the vision, the commitment and the right guidance and support of the business community, any idea can become a great success in its own form and role”.

Speaking about social entrepreneurship, Mr. Jahangir said that social entrepreneurs are problem-solvers, not idealists. Entrepreneurs devise, implement and market innovative solutions to problems, which are affecting the socio-economic development of Pakistan. He also said, “We learn to connect, share best practices and replicate successful models across the board, but most importantly we are driven by innovation and we use entrepreneurial strategies to achieve social change”.

The common message conveyed at the event was that Entrepreneurship forces creative destruction across markets and industries, simultaneously creating new products and business models and was in this largely responsible for the dynamism of industries and long-run economic growth.

The purpose of this session is to provide a platform to motivated and brilliant people, who are thinking of launching a startup, get a handle on reality what they've got and way to make an idea, a feature, a product, or a business into a success.

Past events have attracted sizable crowds of over 150 people per session and are held once a month in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.

SAMAA TV is one of Pakistan’s leading private satellite channels, which takes pride in its fair, factual and independent news coverage through its on-the-hour bulletins, breaking stories, incisive political analysis and current affairs programs. The channel has also made a niche for itself through its programs on women and youth issues besides infotainment. SAMAA TV, launched in December 2007 is the only Pakistani news channel, which has the capability of live coverage from Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore, Quetta and Karachi.