Islamabad ( PRESS RELEASE )
IdeaGist world’s largest digital incubator has completed the first stage of its Startup Pakistan Pilot Cohort-1 for Kamyab Jawan Startup Pakistan. According to founder IdeaGist Hassan Syed, the Cohort program comprises 4 stages including training, ideation, incubation and launch.
15 universities across Pakistan took part in the first phase of Startup Pakistan Pilot Cohort-1. Our total cohort size was 4,693 where 2,107 students actually participated in the training. 765 students completed their online training and 610 students passed the final test. The original target was 10% of all students starting the course but the performance of the first cohort was almost 35% which is outstanding.
In the current COVID 19 situation, startups will be critical in the livelihood restoration and getting our economy back on track. A success story of online education like this could go a long way in building confidence, Hassan added.
Hassan Said that on the second stage (Ideation) mentors will be assigned to the students who will help them polish their business ideas to come up with a minimum viable product. In the third stage of this program those ideas will be incubated and finally on the fourth stage students will be able to get seed money and launch their businesses.
Now we have a number of mentors who are actually overseas Pakistanis, each having minimum experience of 5 years in various fields. We encourage overseas Pakistani professionals who urge to help Pakistan in some way to join our community of Empower Pakistan through https://ep.ideagist.com and help these students by sparing few hours per week, which doesn’t affect their routine, Hassan added.
According to Hassan Syed, registration of Startup Pakistan Pilot Cohort-2 is opened till April 24, 2020 in which 32 universities are taking part and the expected size of this cohort is around 15,000 students.