ISLAMABAD ( BMZ REPORT )
Telenor Group’s first regional Digital Winners Asia start-up event successfully concluded in Yangon, Myanmar on Wednesday. The event brought aboard eightAsian startups, including two promising teams from Pakistan, where Thailand’s Startup ‘TakeMeTour’was crowned champion. The two-day eventwasaimed atenabling participants to achieve scale across markets.
The Digital Winners Asia teams consisted of current and past participants of Telenor’s five startup incubation and acceleration programs across the region. The startups represented diverse industries including, marketing services, energy, artificial intelligence, tourism and education.
The twoPakistani startups including, EcoEnergy, and ForiMazdoori representedTelenor Pakistan’s flagship startup accelerator programme, ‘Velocity’. The startups make use of innovative digital technology to address the most pressing issues faced by the society.
- EcoEnergyaims to facilitate the spread of sustainable electricity, specifically to rural locations of the country.
- ForiMazdoorienables blue-collar workers to register on an employment database to be searchable by employers.
Sharing his thoughts, ChiefMarketing Officer, Telenor Pakistan, Bilal Kazmi said: “Telenor DWA is a platform tounleash Asia’s immense potential for technological innovation that has long-term economic and social benefits for the society and provide local startups new market expansion tools from global specialists.We are very proud of TelenorVelocity’s startups that represented Pakistan at the global stage and wish them all the best as they graduate from the accelerator cohort 01.”“I also congratulate the winning team from Thailand and hope all the participants of the event play a significant role in the progress of their respective countries through digital means,” he added.
The Competing Startups:
The competing start-ups came from five Asian Telenor markets and each was selected based on its life-cycle and potential to break into to new markets, as well as grow alongside Telenor.
| Start-up | Description |
| Bangladesh | |
| 1. BuzzAlly | Mobile self-service marketing platform for SMEs (www.buzzally.com) |
| 2. Socian | Artificial intelligence and social media based analytics platform for brands (www.socian.xyz/) |
| Malaysia | |
| 3. Vase | Cost-efficient market research service delivering quick actionable insights (www.vase.ai) |
| Myanmar | |
| 4. Myanzen | Technologies to seamless integrate social media sales with social network platforms (www.myanzen.com) |
| Pakistan | |
| 5. EcoEnergy | Technologies to facilitate the spread of sustainable electricity, specifically to rural locations (www.ecoenergyfinance.org) |
| 6. ForiMazdoori | ForiMazdoori, along with the vast telecom-retailer-network, is setting up registration points where blue collar workers can walk-in and register on an employment database. Once registered, the workers are searchable via ForiMazdoori apps and website. (https://twitter.com/forimazdoori) |
| Thailand | |
| 7. Skootar | Logistic startup, empowering businesses with on-demand motorbike messengers, making delivery/handling process efficient and reliable.
(www.skootar.com) |
| 8. TakeMeTour | Online platform with access to largest collection of local 1-day tours in Thailand. (www.takemetour.com) |
Pakistan’s digital ecosystem has steadily grown over the years with young entrepreneurs launching solution focused startups. Telenor Pakistan is committed to encourage such digital natives through various youth centric initiatives like Telenor Youth Forum, Telenor Velocity and Apportunity etc.