Dr. Umar Saif, Associate Professor at LUMS, conducted a seminar in Centre for Executive Education (CEE) at IBA City Campus on Wednesday August 6, 2008 on the topic “The Challenge and delight of Entrepreneurship in Pakistan”. He gave insights on the US environment and its conduciveness for entrepreneurship  in comparison to Pakistani culture where the stigma of failure, social pressures and economic constraints do not encourage people to initiate startups. Many big names like Google, Yahoo! etc. were US university startups, so the universities in US have played a key role in encouraging its students to start new ventures.

Dr. Saif also mentioned that Pakistanis have talent, motivation and ambition, all three necessary ingredients for success. But with lack of Venture Capital, no real success stories and incubators are possible and it becomes increasingly difficult for entrepreneurs to succeed. In the end he introduced his incubator, the only one of its kind in the country: SCI, which is helping startups with funds, advice and space. He has three success stories so far, Chopaal, BumpIn and SeeNreport which have the potential to have a huge success.