A one-week training workshop on Business Incubation Centers (BICs) in Islamabad has been organized by the Higher Education Development in Pakistan (HEDP), a department of Higher Education Commission (HEC), in collaboration with Invest-2-Innovate (i2i). The i2i is a leading financier of incubation centers in the country, which promotes promising start-ups through financial help and technical guidance.

Directors and managers of 17 BICs from Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK ) attended the workshop, which was aimed at supporting the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country. In the past, HEC also organized such conferences to that end. The current workshop is, however, going to go a step further by providing the participating start-ups with training on induction, incubation and formal graduation

The structure of the training was finalized after individual meetings with the participating BICs. It covered all aspects of programme designing for execution of a successful incubation programme, including research and rapid product prototyping, road mapping a start-up’s journey, business development, revenue generation, building a financial narrative and investment readiness.

Noshaba Awais, Director (R & D) of HEC, gave the opening address of the training. She extended full support of the HEC to the BIC teams. She said that the grant winners will receive a sum of USD 35,000 in seed funding in addition to the technical support.

Participating BICs were briefed about their important contributions to be made in the Innovator Seed Fund (ISF) grant. ISF is a unique national level seed-funding programme where HEC, along with its partner BICs, is implementing this activity to provide a combination of capacity plus seed-funding support to innovative start-ups in a blended format.

“Aligned with HEC’s mission, these ISF grants are the key components of HEDP project launched for the very first time. HEDP will holistically support development of entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem, and therefore play a key role in transforming Pakistan into a knowledge economy,” said Executive Director of HEC Dr Shaista Sohail in the context of ISF Capacity Building Programme and upcoming awards ceremony. 

“Our social, economic and political problems will not be solved unless we harness the creative potential of our youth. We need to build upon basic ideas to develop sustainable solutions to our most pressing problems. We need to keep global trends and demands in our minds when we try to solve a problem,” she said.

Participating BICs fully appreciated the efforts of HEC in evolving a workable environment to support start-up ecosystem. They assured the HEC of their full support in solving any problems faced by the ISF grantees and future incubates.

Director General (R & I) of HEC Hazrat Bilal gave the closing remarks, where he lauded the efforts of trainers, BIC directors and HEC organizing team. He also collected feedback from participants on how to improve the upcoming training and capacity building programmes for BICs.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk