MITCEF BAP - an excellent initiative!
Attending the MITCEF BAP Final presentations at the Avari Hotel on November 6 was a very exhilirating experience. The five finalists – Alchemy, Autosoft, Sofizar, Softech and Tohfay – took 20 minutes each to tell us their stories, finally ending up with their strategies for accelerating the growth of their businesses over the next 5 years. The presentations were impressive and showed how much work and thought had gone into the process.
MITCEF’s Business Acceleration Program was launched in August with the objective
of assisting IT and ITES companies in Pakistan to grow to the next level by providing expert coaching and mentoring.
Since most companies here are shy to share revenue statistics and strategies, it was not surprising that companies actually had to be cajoled into joining the Business Acceleration Program. A total of 20 companies from across Pakistan took part. All of them went through intense coaching and mentoring with local and foreign entrepreneurs. The process enabled them to look at weak areas, change strategy, re-construct business plans and review what they had done thus far and what the roadmap should be for the future.
The advice they received, the questions they were asked, the self-assessment that followed, and the lessons they learnt were all totally invaluable. Speaking to some of them over the last few weeks, I was able to see how much they had gained from the program. Ken Morse and Bill Aulet from the MIT Entrepreneurship Centre have been an integral part of this program, as have many entrepreneurs from within and outside Pakistan.
For details regarding the experience that Alchemy went through, read Jawwad’s blog. The event was also covered heavily in Green&White.
Dr. Zahir A. Syed, Syed Azhar Rizvi, Imran Sayeed and the entire MITCEF team need to be congratulated for coming up with an excellent program and for executing it beautifully. This will be run again early next year and I hope that those companies who had reservations about participating in this initial phase, will take advantage of it in 2008.
This year’s MITCEF BAP award distribution ceremony was followed by the announcement of the launch of the *Tech Angels Network (TAN) by Professor Ken Morse. This will mark the beginning of angel investment into Pakistan’s talented technology sector.
Many of us have always had great faith in the Pakistan IT industry and its
potential. The past couple of years have justified our faith as companies
like Scrybe, Amaana, Alchemy, PixSense, Mobile Complete, CDF, Orgoo etc have appeared on our landscape bringing forth technology innovation and
attracting investment. With programs such as the MITCEP BAP, the TiE Business Plan Competition and P@SHA’s continued efforts and commitment, our companies will continue to make a mark for themselves in local and international markets.
Sofizar, which was the formal winner of the MITCEF BAP, and their product TicketNest.com, has been covered beautifully by Osama Hashmi in this post.
5 comments November 10, 2007
