SPELbound! - PIEAS' First Entrepreneurial Magazine

B u s i n e s s M a g a z i n e | A p r i l 2 0 11 S P E L b o u n d ! A n E n t r e p r e n e u r i a l M a g a z i n e | F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 6

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6 RANDOM RAMBLE ABOUT ENTREPRENEURSHIP

A small introduction for those not privy to the concept.

8 TIWANA- ENGINEER & ENTREPRENEUR EXTRAORDINAIRE

The story of one of the most successful entrepreneurs of Pakistan, Mr. Fahad Tiwana, CEO Tiwana Holdings.

10 “STOP TALKING, START WORKING”, UMER ADNAN

Interview of Mr. Umar Adnan, Co-founder and CEO E4-Technologies.

14 A PEEK AT TECH INCUBATORSThings you should know about incubators as an entrepreneur in Pakistan.

16 BIG IDEAS, BIG OPPORTUNITIES, BIG MONEY

Read on to know about the most happening business plan competitions coming up this year.

19 WHERE YOU CAN LEARN ITA brief description of online resources for hopeful entrepreneurs.

C ONTENT S MAGAZINE


OUR TEAM

MUHAMMAD FAIQUE SHAKEEL

Executive EditorGraphic DesignerBSEE 2014-2018

NABIT A.BAJWACreative Head

BSEE 2014-2018

HASSAN IRTZA CHAUDHRY

President SPEL

DR. M. TAYYEB JAVED

Head ORICAdviser SPEL

NUHA SAADContributor EditorBSME 2015-2019

BILAL AHMED Content Writer

BSME 2015-2019

MARYAM ABIDContent Writer

BSME 2015-2019

AMEER HASSAN KHAN

Content WriterBSME 2015-2019

EXECUTIVE

ADVISORY BOARD

WRITERS

DESIGN

MASOOD SALIK Chief Design Officer

BSEE 2014-2018

AHSAN KHANBSEE 2013-2017

INTERVIEWER

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MUHAMMAD FAIQUE SHAKEEL Executive Editor

EDITOR’S LETTER

The spring semester has started and with it all of us have returned to our previous routines. For most of us it generally is participating in the academics and various extracurricular activities. Apart from the learning purposes and the fun involved, one major reason we participate in these extra curricular activities is to dis-tinguish ourselves from the rest helping us secure a more prosperous future.

Some of us consider the curricular activities to be more important and hence are inclined more towards the academics, while some strive to develop the soft skills required in the market by participating in the extra curriculars. The rest, as they say, are all-rounders. I, myself, have always believed that the importance of both, the extracurriculars and the academics shouldn’t be undermined, and one should strive to be an all-rounder possessing a speciality. At the end, all of our beliefs and achievements boil down to the one thing we want the most, success. With this magazine, however, I would like to introduce you to a new concept, which can enable you to earn and fulfill your dreams at the same time! The true definition of success!

But before I do that I would like to ask you a question; why did you choose to become an engineer? This may seem to be a fairly innocuous question, but beware, a lot of us fail to provide a satisfactory answer to it. However, if you really are passionate about what you have chosen, entrepreneurship may be the right choice for you!

I, for one, chose engineering because the very definition of it excites me; using scientific knowledge to design a structure, a machine or a process that makes human life easier, speed up activities or solve a problem. For me, engineering’s all about creativity. I want to experience the feeling of creating something that people use in their daily lives, something that makes peoples life simpler and better. And this is where my motiva-tion lies; making this world a better place to live by ENGINEERING life changing products. And after getting exposed to the amazing world of entrepreneurship, I realized that entrepreneurship is the tool that can be used to convert my engineering ideas into reality, and hence bring positive changes in the lives of people all around me. Now, the concept of entrepreneurship drives my life as an engineer!

This could be true for you as well. And this is very the reason I wanted to make SPELbound!; to introduce you to the amazing concept of entrepreneurship. SPELbound!, an entrepreneurial magazine by the Society for Promotion of Entrepreneurship and Leadership (SPEL), contains all the information you need to know about entrepreneurship as a beginner. Informative Articles, Interviews, Success Stories, all contained within one magazine. I would recommend that you please go through the magazine at least once. Who knows entering the world of entrepreneurship via SPELbound! may change your life forever!

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of my team members for supporting me, and enabling me to build the kind of magazine I wanted. I would also like to thank Dr. Tayyeb Javed, Head ORIC and advisor SPEL for his unending support and valuable suggestions. And lastly, Ms. Huda Mahmood of BSEE 14-18 for her selfless voluntary work. Thank you!


Entrepreneurship could transform your destiny and give you a plethora of opportunities.”

When I was little, someone gave me a Barbie coloring and crafts book. One of the crafts ideas was making beads using nothing but paper, glue and toothpicks. I’m not sure if I ever tried it out… I think I did and that it didn’t turn out so well so I gave up.

Recently I saw this magazine just lying around in my family’s car and being the avid reader that I am, I picked it up and the cover page caught my eye. It featured ‘Paper Miracles’, a venture that gave female earthquake survivors a platform to be financially inde-pendent by making beads using paper, glue and toothpicks. The beads they make are then hard-ened using varnish and used either paired with semi-precious stones,

or by themselves to make fashion-able jewelry. The jewelry has been displayed at various fashion shows and can also be bought online. This venture is classy, colorful and phil-anthropic all at once. Flipping through the magazine, I saw that the issue also had an article about Patari, the musical start-up that is taking the country by storm. It provides an online music stream-ing service that has an extensive library of old favorites and new discoveries, all in one place! Both these ventures are entrepreneurial gold and the fact that magazines and media in Pakistan are recog-nizing them means that a lot has changed in the country. A degree in medicine or engineering is no longer the only definition of being successful.

The most basic definition of entre-preneurship is to start a business. But from all the reading I’ve done, (including novels about entre-preneurs) I have come to per-ceive the term entrepreneurship as something quite different, and more exciting. Entrepreneurship involves investing in an idea. It’s about taking a calculated risk. The idea has to be good. It has to have potential. It has to have demand in the market. The timing should be

A Random Ramble AboutE n t r e p r e n e u r s h i p(A small introduction for those not privy to the concept)

great. And the entrepreneur or busi-nessman has to have luck on his side. Take away one of these things and you’ll end up with little or no profit, or if you’re really unlucky, a busi-ness that is sinking faster than the Titanic did. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines an entrepreneur as one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise. The Oxford dictionaries website defines it as “A person who sets up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit” and more interestingly as “A promoter in the entertainment

SHORT ARTICLE

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industry”. The basic concept that all these sources seem to agree on is that entrepreneurship involves investment in an idea (idea being key, it doesn’t have to be a product).

Entrepreneurship, if done right, has a huge amount of potential in Pakistan. That is because this country is full of small-scale, barely sustainable businesses that produce products that if marketed properly, would be popular internationally. I’m talking about everything from the fabulous art our women wear (yes, I’m talking about cloth prints, and colorful parandas, and no, I’m not just talking about designer lawn) to the interesting and often hilarious poetry one can read off the back of trucks. This country needs people who can put the right spin on its local produce and help it achieve its true potential. So many poor people make so little money by selling their creations that are worth so much more. Pakistan is full of uniqueness and originality. I’m not saying our unique culture hasn’t been brought forward before, I am saying it hasn’t been brought forward the right way. We could do so much more. Skilled entre-preneurs could be hiding behind degrees in science, art or no degree at all. They could be hiding behind Aaloo gobi on the stove and a ton of clothes to wash.

Awareness needs to be created about the concept of entrepreneur-ship and sources of startup money (e.g business plan competitions, government schemes, NGO proj-ects etc.). Entrepreneurship could transform your destiny and give you a plethora of opportunities. Entrepreneurship could also help Pakistan’s economy, especially if an entrepreneur keeps that as an aim and tries to build a sustain-able enterprise based on local

raw material that has good export potential and requires little to no imports. Most entrepreneurs don’t have enough resources to create a start-up based purely on self-in-vestment. Therefore they pitch their idea to investors, who invest in the idea, usually in return for business shares. An entrepreneur must be careful with his or her ven-tures because investors tend to be weary of putting money in a boat that has sunk multiple times. It is best to avoid being in a situation

like that, yet on the other hand it is important to not give up on your creative abilities, just because a few of your ideas weren’t as prof-itable as you expected them to be. You never know when you’re going to strike gold. So get those creative juices flowing; work hard, with integrity, don’t waste investment money, and do your best! Changing the world might be reaching for the stars; but with luck, you might just leave a lasting mark.

To borrow from Looney Tunes, “That’s all folks!”

NUHA SAAD BSME 2015-2019

It is important to not give up on your cre-ative abilities, just because a few of your ideas weren’t as prof-itable as you expected them to be. You nev-er know when you’re going to strike gold!”


Tiwana- Engineer &Entrepreneur extraordinaire SUCCESS STORY

Fahad Tiwana, 24-year-old multi-millionaire comes from a country, society and family that believes in success being a steady job. There was no room in that status quo for the risk-taking, entrepre-neurial investments that the busi-ness world requires. Despite soci-ety’s push in a different direction, Fahad, at the young age of 18, took a leap into the realm of things left largely untried and tested by those in our patch of earth. He started his first venture, RealityPOD.com; which he describes as,“A blog ded-icated to covering the latest news and innovation in the field of Robotics, Biomedicine, Gadgets and Technology.” He not only suc-cessfully created a start-up busi-ness from an idea that sprung forth from his mind, he did this while studying to be a civil engineer at the prestigious National University of Science and Technology at the same time. Now, I’ve barely been in university for a month and I can tell you; the workload is insane. Fahad, however, managed to juggle his studies and his business venture so successfully, that halfway through his degree, his blog was getting over 2 million hits a month and gener-ating decent revenues.

And that’s when he was hit by a stroke of luck; his university launched the Discover Business Plan Competition for the very first time, offering him a platform on which to display his entrepreneurial

skills. Fahad made the bold deci-sion to participate in the compe-tition against other Pakistani stu-dents with ideas for business ven-tures. What followed was eight months of rigorous mentoring and training with some of the leading businessmen of Pakistan. Fahad also attended training workshops arranged by his university and thus polished his entrepreneur-ial skills. Fahad’s talent and hard-work led his venture to be chosen as one of the top 3 business ideas in the Discover competition. He was awarded cash prize and free incu-bation at Technology Incubation Centre, NUST. This helped his start-up flourish and gave him copious amounts of national and international exposure. He took the global stage, representing Pakistan at the 2nd Global Entrepreneurial Summit 2011, held in Turkey. His team was chosen as runners-up at the competition and was invited by the US State Department to Silicon Valley for further training. They were also celebrities back home; the Prime Minister invited them for tea and they were given a cash prize of 2.5 Million.

Thanks to all the exposure and mentoring, he was able to sell RealityPOD.com for 110,000 USD in 2012 and he has never looked back. He started 3 new compa-nies that year; a projector retail company called OzLumen, an Engineering themed E-magazine

I did not want to be suc-

cessful. The concept of being successful is just too boring. All I wanted in life was to create things and see them grow. It was about dream-ing and seeing those dreams ma-terialize.”

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called Wonderful Engineering, and an investment firm called Tiwana Holdings. He was able to sell OzLumen to an Australian retailer for 50,000 USD in just 6 months.

At 24, he is the CEO of Wonderful Engineering and Tiwana Holdings and he says he has a few exciting new start-ups in stealth mode. Wonderful Engineering is currently the world’s largest engineering magazine with over 4.5 million readers a month and 2.3 million social media fol-lowers. Tiwana Holdings has also grown and has about 1 million dollars of investment in real estate sector in Pakistan. So it is obvious Fahad has managed to do really well for himself.

Modest and bent on giving back to society, Fahad gives credit to his mentors, saying, “I attribute my success to a lot of mentors who helped me learn the ropes of busi-ness at such a young age. It was their way of giving back to the society. Now I believe it is my turn so I started Tiwana Foundation this year, which is a foundation aimed at providing education to lower income segments of the society.” For the first year, Tiwana Foundation has already disbursed 0.6 million in scholarships among primary school students.

O n t h e f u t u r e o f Entrepreneurship in Pakistan and his own future plans, Fahad says, ”Besides growing my current ventures and starting new excit-ing ventures, there are challenges that need to be addressed. The fate of our country will change when more and more people will go into startups. To change this, there is a bumpy road ahead but when I see various young incubates around me, I believe we are ready for the challenge more than ever before.”

NUHA SAADBSME 2015-2019


INTERVIEW

STOP TALKING,TART WORKING”

UMER ADNANCO-FOUNDER & CEO E4-TECHNOLOGY

Umer Adnan is a problem solver who uses engineering, technology and product designing to present unique and effective solutions to common problems of our people. He is an entrepreneur and now running a successful start-up company known as E4 Technologies. His formal education comprises of an undergraduate degree in Mechatronics (NUST) and M.S.E. Electrical Engineering (coursework completed- From Arizona State University on Fulbright Scholarship). His passion is to empower humanity using technology and he believes in hard work and perseverance. Following is an interview of Umer Adnan where he answers some of the questions related to his life and motivates entrepreneurs to work and put their ideas into practice.

Don’t do entrepreneurship alone and at the same time don’t do it with some-body who has the exact same per-sonality and skills as you have.”

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What was your motiva-tion for becoming an entrepreneur?

One of my motivations was that I wanted to create an impact. I wanted to do something meaningful with my career. The second thing is that I realized that this sort of lifestyle suits me more, it is more demanding than any other job but at the same time it can be more financially rewarding. I personally think that I am a workaholic, so it’s better for me if I work for 5-10 years and then spend the rest of my life in a semi-retired way. So basically my initial idea was firstly to create an impact and secondly to gain financial independence and to do the things that matter to me rather than to work for a salary or something like that.

What do you consider to be your greatest achievement so far?

Well, let me tell you a bit about E4 Technologies, just a little bit about our journey. I graduated from NUST in Mechatronics in 2009. I started my first ever venture when I was in univer-sity. I started designing UPS’ and sold them in the twin cities, Islamabad and Rawalpindi. That is when I got the first taste of entrepreneurship and I found that it was much more rewarding than a salary job and at the same time I learned that it is much more fun to run your own thing. After that I went ahead and got myself a job in Lahore. I also got a Fulbright Scholarship and went to America to do my Masters in Electrical Engineering. When I was in the USA, I spent most of my time travelling and attending different conferences. I went to Arizona State University, did my Masters in Electrical Engineering and at the same time travelled to about twenty states. I started another

venture in America and learned a lot from it. Then I came back to Pakistan and started a company named E4 Technologies which is what I am doing right now. I practically started this company out of my pocket. I had a lot of connections from the US since I had just came back from there. And I did a lot of networking. I got some projects and convinced one of my professors to hire me. To be honest, I started out of my bedroom. For two to three months, I worked out of my home. Then, I got into incubation at TIC, NUST. It’s been almost two years since then and we have not looked back ever since. I started this company from 500 dollars that I had made from a project in June 2013 and today we are a 1. 5 million dollar company. We have just raised some investment and it’s over a hundred thousand dollars. I raised the company in California and the company’s value is at 1.5 million. Now we are growing and we have fourteen to fifteen employees. We have a sustainable business now. We have recently raised investment. We were doing fine without investment but now we have taken this investment to take our start up higher. Having done good business is what I would consider my greatest achievement, even though we haven’t been that successful. The biggest achievement is getting a team together. We have got clients in seven countries including China, US and New Zealand. I think that we are now poised to do some-thing very, very big.

Other than deciding to work for yourself, what was the single most

important decision you made that contributed to your success?

I think that it was hiring a good team and choosing a very good co-founder. So, don’t do entrepreneur-ship alone and at the same time don’t do it with somebody who has the exact

same personality and skills as you have. My co-founder’s name is Umer Ilyas. He is our CTO. Our personali-ties are very different and even though he was my junior in Mechatronics, we have very different career projections. I think that is what compliments us. We can cover for each other’s weak-nesses. So, I think that we make a very good team and that is very important.

If you could time travel to day one of your start up and have fifteen minutes with

your former self to communicate any lessons that you have acquired with intention of saving yourself from mistakes and heartache,what would you tell yourself?

I would tell myself a lot of things. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the past. That’s how you learn. In start-ups there is more failure than success. Right now, I, my co-founder and most of my team are working 70-80 hours a week which is almost double the amount of work that is normally done in a week. So, I think the one thing I would tell myself will be about my team composition as I hired several people in the past despite the fact that I knew they were not very good. It is very important to stay true to yourself. Sometimes you have a product and you think that it will sell but it doesn’t sell. So the best thing you could do is to be data driven and don’t bring your ego in between any decision you make.

So how is running a success-ful business different from what you thought it would

be?

It is actually very different. The biggest difference is that I never imagined myself working this much. I have to work a lot. In some aspects I would say that I am the worst boss for myself. I make a harsh working environment for myself. There are


Perfection Selection: What would an entrepreneur choose?

“We can’t launch! There are still a million things to do!”

Every entrepreneur at some time reaches a crossroad: he or she will have to choose perfection or choose progress. The best products and services are never done. Entrepreneurs always have to make that last optimization, that final color change, or the critical code edit. At some point though, the entrepreneur needs to say “enough is enough” and ship the product or service to customers.

The best entrepreneurs realize this, and always choose progress over per-fection. A caveat for new entrepreneurs though - do not sacrifice the quality of your product or service. Quality matters to a customer. Perfection only matters to an entrepreneur.

Do you choose perfection or do you choose progress?

SOURCE: www.entrepreneurfail.com

no holidays. Sometimes you are even working on Saturdays and Sundays. Practically, there is no escape. Rarely on some occasion do you get some time to relax. For instance, I will be working until the day before Eid. Then I will have only the first day of Eid off after which I have to get back to work. I might not be present in the office but I will be working through my laptop in my home. So, at the end I will only get one or two days off.

Last question, if I ask you to offer a first time entrepre-neur only one piece of advice,

what would it be?

One advice would be to stop talking and start working. This is the biggest problem. As in Islamabad, ninety percent of the people are just talking, talking and talking. They are not interested in doing things.Executing things is more import-ant than talking about them.

Interview by: Ahsan KhanEdited by: Nabit Bajwa

Nuha Saad Maryam Abid

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Plan9 When talking about incuba-tors in Pakistan, the first name that comes to one’s mind is Plan9. Found-ed in 2012, it is said to be Pakistan’s largest tech incubator. Plan9 is su-pervised by the Punjab information Technology Board (PITB), and Mr. Umar Saif, Chairman of the PITB, is the founder of this incubator.

This incubator has giv-en birth to many success stories which include Patari, Eyedeus Labs, BookMe, Vivid Technologies, Markhor, Itsy Bitsy.

‘’You can take some really good raw material but it’s what you do with it. And that’s where Plan9 is doing so well’’.

-Bill Morrow, Co-founder, Angel’s Den Plan9 offers 6 months pro-grams, two batches per year, in which anyone with an idea or a product in prototype phase can ap-ply to get into their program. They provide you with an office space, stipend, laptops, mentoring work-shops, internet connectivity, and a platform to connect with potential clients/customers, all of which is very important for any company. An-other advantage for fresh entrepre-neurs who join this incubator is that Plan9, being a government organiza-tion, doesn’t take away any equity.

PlanX PlanX is also a project of PITB. Being the sister organization to Plan9, it is free of cost. This accel-eration program offers six month coaching to startups that have al-ready gotten a taste of market air and need a direction where they can achieve success. Just like Plan9, it is also our countries’ largest accelera-tion program.

Entrepreneurship is the art of creating something from scratch and taking it to the top, which requires perseverance and the courage to over-come obstacles. An entrepreneur is the person who is able to perform and display the urge, skill and innovative ability to establish a business or indus-try either on his own or with the help of his partners. The development and scope of entrepreneurship in Pakistan isn’t, what you may say, extraordinary but it’s not very bad either. We’re mak-ing progress on large and small scale and it is just the beginning. It is a very common known fact that to perform well in any field one needs a proper platform that can hone his skills and meet his needs to move ahead and do great things. One of such platforms is called a “Tech In-cubator” or a “Business Incubator”. These are organizations which intend to groom and speed up the success and growth of a startup. Incubators provide entrepreneurs with several facilities that can help in blooming their busi-ness. Some of these include help with business basics, mentoring and train-ing workshops, uninterrupted power and internet facilities, legal advice, of-fice space and many more things. There are many incubators

working in Pakistan, which provide young business enthusiasts with their beneficial services. Some of these are as follows.

A PEEK AT TECH I N C U B A T O R S ARTICLE

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At PlanX, startups are pro-vided with mentorship and advisors to help with marketing skills, busi-ness plans and growth strategies. These advisors also help startups in raising their funding by introducing to relevant and potential investors/clients. PlanX also hosts Demo Day where the startups can interact with industry experts, mentors, advisors and potential clients by pitching their ideas and presenting themselves. Some successful startups of PlanX include Xgear, Baby Planet, Travly and Plagiarism CheckerX.

LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship As the name LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship (LCE) implies, it is the center housed at LUMS, offering programs named as The Foundation, Scouting Seasons, Plug ‘N’ Play Centre and The Foundation Fund. Inaugurated by Syed Babar Ali, Shahid Hussain and Razzak Dawood in 2014, 11 startups present-ed their ideas to the judges and after a lot of careful thinking and decision making, they selected four startups; Appography, Bugdev studios, Cog-nitica and Savaree. LCE is a recently founded fa-cility but it has already created many successful companies and startups like GrabDeals, Jewellery design Pro, H&O Services and AutoGenie.pk. The Foundation offers a four month program for in-house incuba-tion. Apart from usual incubation, it also provides an acceleration pro-gram in which you can apply at any time during the year i.e. inductions on a rolling basis. LCE offers services like

mentoring sessions, monthly sti-pend, office space, 24x7 internet provision, power and phone, access to investors and potential clients at the startup summit etc. Unlike Plan9, LCE requires a 2.5-7.5 percent equity in the start-up.

Invest2Innovate “We Believe Entrepre-neurs have the power to change the world. We provide the support they need to get there.” With this motto, Inves-t2Innovate, which was founded in 2011, is currently working as an accelerator organization that helps passionate, skillful and prospective entrepreneurs in making their ideas a reality and further, a success. I2I is basically a place for impact based ideas. I2I has nurtured many suc-cessful startups like DoctHERs, EZPZ, Dheere Bolo and 3Restart. This incubator offers a four month program to a batch of five to six startups per year. One big plus of this incubator is that I2I has been doing Demo Days for many years consistently, as opposed to other in-cubators in Pakistan. For those who don’t know, a Demo Day is a day where startups pitch investors and present their plans to them. The pro-gram usually ends with the Demo Day. Invest2Innovate takes sweat equity which can be 0.5 to 1% and a lit-tle sum at the start of the acceleration.

NUST Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Being the first technology incubator of Pakistan and centered at one of the most prestigious insti-tutions of Pakistan, NUST Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is unique because it offers extra ser-vices with the intention to help start-ups learn lessons along with their journeys to success. NUST CIE has many wings which include the Career Develop-ment Center (CDC), the Profession-al Development Center (PDC), the Technology Incubation Center (TIC), and the Industrial Liaison Office (ILO). All of these, in one way or an-other are working to help the young and learning entrepreneurs bloom their business and polish their skills. NUST CIE imparts profes-sional knowledge with the help of real life business lessons, and turns one from a casual to a professional If you are looking for an in-cubator perfectly designed for tech-nology based startups then NUST CIE is just the place for you.

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude” -Thomas Jefferson

BILAL AHMEDBSME 2015-2019


The entrepreneurs of today have UNLIMITED opportunities to showcase their skills at all levels. If you have a great idea but are struggling to put together startup capital, a uni-versity business-plan competition could go a long way in putting you and your company on the map. Moreover, it is a great way to test your ideas in front of a panel of experienced judges and get feedback from skilled mentors. There are contests for all sorts of ventures and the experience and networking opportunities these competitions provide is invalu-able for you and your company. We at SPELbound! put together a list of some of the best business plan and entrepreneurial competitions in Pakistan, and all over the world, for your convenience:

COMPETITIONS

B IDEASOPPORTUNITIES MONEY

IG

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START UP OPEN: Start Up Open is a global competition to identify and recog-nize new and promising startups. It is open to any entrepreneur who has just started or is about to start a new venture with a “startup moment” in the given year. For the competition of 2015 the deadline was November 16, 2015. For 2016 year competi-tion the deadline will be announced soon. Start Up open recognizes the GEW 50 – the 50 most promising ventures from around the world–based on their growth potential, pas-sion, creativity, level of idea devel-opment, and pitching skills. Those 50 companies will then compete for a grand prize trip to the Global En-trepreneurship Congress (GEC) in Medellin, Colombia. (This was the prize for year 2015).Category: Entrepreneurship, Busi-ness Idea.Website: www.startupopen.comStudents can create an iStart ac-count and get more info about the upcoming competitions from there.Source: startupopen.com/about-2/

GO GREEN IN THE CITY CHALLENGE 2016: If you are an entrepreneur

and interested in changing the world and solving problems then this is your chance to make that change and present your idea. In teams of two, students from all over the world are invit-ed to enter the competition and share their innovative solutions to real world business challeng-es within energy management from the leading global energy management company, Schnei-der Electric. The 12 finalist teams will be invited to Paris in September 2016 to present their ideas in front of a promi-nent jury and compete for a trip around the world as well as a CAREER OPPORTUNITY at Schneider Electric. Go Green in the City 2016 is the sixth edition of the ultimate student competi-tion for smart energy solutions organized by Schneider Electric.Prize: Trip around the world as well as a CAREER OPPORTU-NITY at Schneider Electric.Category: Business Plan, Elec-trical Engineering.Deadline: 2016-04-15Eligibility: Undergraduate lev-el, Graduate level.

Source: opportunitydesk.org/2015/11/25/go-green-in-the-city-competition-2016-win-a-trip-around-the-world-more/

2016 GREEN CHEMISTRY & E N G I N E E R I N G BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION: The ACS Green Chemis-try Institute® hosts the only busi-ness plan competition (BPC) ex-clusively devoted to innovations in sustainable green chemistry and engineering. Applicants have the chance to receive expert feed-back, training and mentorship, and the opportunity to market their business idea to their target audience. The ACS Green Chem-istry Institute® Business Plan Competition consists of three phases. In the first, applicants submit a short executive sum-mary that follows a specific set of defined guidelines. Teams that are selected to move forward will receive additional instructions in April. Free business pitch train-ing will be offered to semi-final-ists before the Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference. All semi-finalist teams must present their business plans in person on June 15, 2016 for a chance to win the $10,000 grand prize.Category: Business Plan, Tech-nology and Engineering.Prize: : $10,000Eligibility: Undergraduate level,


Graduate level, Postgraduate level.Deadline: 2016-04-08Source: www.gcande.org/program/business-plan-competition/

THE STARTUP CHALLENGE 2016: The Startup Challenge com-petition held in Monterey, Califor-nia is an opportunity for prospective entrepreneurs, start-ups and emerg-ing companies to showcase their ideas and business concepts. The Startup Challenge con-nects regional entrepreneurs to oth-er entrepreneurs, funders, consul-tants, support programs, regional and local angels and venture capi-talists. The Challenge is a tool that strengthens regional start-ups and emerging businesses by providing entrepreneurs with the best founda-tion possible. Judges will be a panel of experienced investors.Category: Entrepreneurship.Prize: Up to $20,000 cash plus $10,000 in legal and other services.Eligibility: Anyone is Eligible but if they are under 21, their legal guardians must sign the entry form.Deadline: 2016-03-14Source: www.alphagamma.eu/en-trepreneurship/the-2016-startup-challenge/

CREATE ‘16: One of the biggest events in PIEAS, Create, is a national level entrepreneurial competition. Con-testants from all over the country come together with their ideas and in the first module, some of the best and most experienced execu-tives from all over Pakistan act as mentors to these contestants. The CREATE mentors nurture and give shape to the ideas of these young entrepreneurs in an interactive and informative mentoring session. Af-ter an exhaustive mentoring session, the contestants then have to prepare an executive summary of their busi-ness plan. In the final round, 5 se-lected participants have to prepare a business model and present it live in front of a panel of judges. The top three ideas with the best business models win big cash prizes to fund their startups. Category: Social and Tech Entre-preneurshipDeadline: 2016-02-21

Pakistan is a developing country. The ratio of the number of available jobs available, to the number of graduates is very small. So it is up to us (students) to turn our innovative ideas into a reality, and become job creators rather than job seekers. These entrepreneurship competitions provide prospective entrepreneurs an opportunity to present their ideas to the world and to get funds for their startups. All of the above mentioned competitions provide a good opportunity to ac-quire funds, scholarships and jobs

to the students. Let alone, the ex-posure you get by participating in such events is unmatchable. Competitions like Startup Open and Go Green Challenge pro-vide the students with an oppor-tunity to not only present their ideas but also to make this world eco-friendly, a better place to live, and to interact with intel-lectual minds on a global level.

MARYAM ABIDBSME 2015-2019

Edited By: Nuha Saad

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WHERE YOU CAN LEARN IT SHORT ARTICLE Want to enroll in a college for a short business course? Want to hone your entrepreneurial skills? Wait. Going to an institute for a short course or two is a thing of the past. All what you want now is a laptop, internet, and coffee. All those lectures which you were going to pay for are available online, mostly free. That professor, that suc-cessful entrepreneur, that business-man is just a click away.

You must have heard of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. What if you developed your business skills from the famous MIT? And that too from the comfort of your chair? Surprised? You shouldn’t be. MIT is offering its lectures on entrepreneurship online, for free. The MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) has 60+ courses on finance, law, leadership, marketing and plan-ning, operations, and strategy: the six fundamentals every going-to-be-en-trepreneur must have a hold on. Along with this, there are single session videos in which some fun-damental aspect of entrepreneurship

is discussed by some MIT entrepre-neur, or any successful business man. So just sit back and avail this wonder-ful opportunity of learning from MIT. Who knows your first startup may be the next Hewlett-Packard? (William R. Hewlett SR is an MIT alumnus)

Just like MIT OCW, edX is also an online course provider. While OCW is MIT specific only, edX offers courses from universities all over the world, notably Harvard. The presence of many universities has created a very diverse collection of courses on many topics. Although an entrepreneurship specific section is not there, it is very easy to choose a course according to your need. There is series of courses focusing on who your customer is and what you can do for him, a must for beginners.

The unique thing about edX is that it is a research oriented program analyzing how people learn through the inter-net. The findings are then incorpo-rated in their teaching methodology. So if you are choosing edX, be ready for a unique learning experience.

Coursera.org is another online courseware, built upon the same lines as edX. It has brought the best courses of a number of renowned universities to your computer screen. “Essentials of Entrepreneurship” (University of California) is a must for those aspir-ing a future in business, as it aims to provide the audience with the very basic and necessary knowledge on entrepreneurship. It focuses on how

creativity, opportunity and feasibility are best evaluated, how business strat-egies and plans should be devised, and how success can be achieved in a new business. And it’s not just this course; on Coursera, under the tag of entre-preneurship, you will find a plethora of courses, all up to the mark, ready to fill that missing chunk of business-man in you.

udacity.com, “audacious for you, the student”, was the result of an experiment conducted by Stanford University, and since then has been at the forefront of online course pro-viders. It is a for-profit organization, but believe me; all of its courses are worth the money. It has partnered with some Silicon Valley giants, notably Google, Facebook, AT&T, Cloudera, and mongoDB, for providing “nano-degree programs”. These programs focus on developing a specific set of skills required by tech companies. Some of the tech companies also offer paid internships on their programs! On entrepreneurship, “How to Build a Startup” is the most famous course on Udacity. Its instructor Steve Blanks is a well-known serial entrepreneur, with an experience spanning over thirty years. He focuses on the key steps in building a successful startup. In short, you’ll have loads to learn with lots of opportunities at Udacity.

Cheers!

AMEER HASSAN KHANBSME 2015-2019

SPELbound! - PIEAS' First Entrepreneurial Magazine

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