IBA CED and Oxfam collaborate to initiate IBA Startup Competitions Program

The IBA Aman-Center for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) and Oxfam have joined hands to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Pakistan through a Startup Competitions Program. This program was launched in two rural (Jamshoro & Layyah) and 3 urban (Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore) cities of Pakistan.

The program aims to improve the economic and social strengths of young men and women, particularly those living in rural climate-change affected areas. The IBA CED has undertaken the responsibility to provide necessary support for capacity-building with regards to entrepreneurial career projection, incubation support, mentoring and handholding, and most importantly, access to financial and other significant resources required to build a sustainable business venture.

During the first stage of these sessions, the IBA CED shortlisted 285 potential startups from all across Pakistan. In the second stage of this program, 2-Day workshops were conducted in Karachi, Jamshoro, Layyah, Lahore and Islamabad. These workshops commenced from November 20, 2020 in Karachi and concluded on December 12, 2020 in Jamshoro.

The workshops focused on building an entrepreneurial mindset, business modeling and entrepreneurial marketing. The participating startups were given self-selected assignments with respect to their business operations for the following month. Based on performance, the startups will be shortlisted for the later stages of the competition.

The Executive Director IBA Karachi, Dr. S. Akbar Zaidi, was the Chief Guest in Layyah on November 25, 2020. He interacted with the participants of the Startup Competitions Program and distributed seed money to 10 selected SMEs worth Rs. 400,000 per SME from the "Business Development Support to SMEs" of the Layyah component of the Oxfam-funded project.