Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Dreaming in Karachi: The Nest I/O, a new space for startups

Editor’s note: This post comes from Jehan Ara, President of the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA), a platform to promote and develop the country’s tech industry.

Pakistan’s commercial capital, Karachi, is a city of 25 million people. It attracts people from across the subcontinent who dream of building a better future for themselves. Opening The Nest I/O, an incubator and startup space here will hopefully help some of them turn their dreams into reality.
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Across Asia, we’re seeing home-grown companies expand and succeed at home and abroad. Flipkart in India and Groopic in Pakistan come to mind. While we’ve seen the Pakistani startup community grow in recent years - with local-born innovations and startups like RemoteInterview.io, Eyedeus Labs, Convo and The Markhor, paving the way - there’s still a lot of untapped potential.

By opening The Nest I/O, P@SHA is expanding support to the Pakistani tech startup community in partnership with Google for Entrepreneurs and Samsung, and with support from the U.S. State Department. The Nest’s over 6,500 sq ft of physical space will provide a home for entrepreneurs where they’ll have access to mentors, training and community events.

In our first year of operation, we plan to support over 50 startups and provide co-working space to an additional 700 entrepreneurs. As part of the Google For Entrepreneurs global community, we look forward to being able to provide startups in Karachi the opportunity to freely sit and connect with over 30 startup hubs around the world from Campus London to iHub in Nairobi.

I too am a dreamer and my dream is that the The Nest I/O will provide the right support to Pakistan’s next wave of entrepreneurs. Interested startups can apply here.

Posted by Jehan Ara, President, Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT & ITES (P@SHA)

1 comment:

  1. It’s a great opportunity finally in Karachi. Tech professionals here have great potential in them with most of them willing to move down the path of being an entrepreneur with great ideas in their mind. But not having proper guidance and resources, this potential often remained untapped, NEST I/O will hopefully channel all this talent in the right direction for good.

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