The Ignite National Technology Fund, a public sector company with Ministry of IT & Telecom, participated in this year’s ITCN Asia with 14 start-ups from different National Incubation Centers, according to a press statement received by WealthPK.

The 21st ITCN Asia Information Technology & Telecom Show was held at Expo Center Karachi from 24th to 26th August. The event was attended by guests from IT ministry, IT firms, start-ups, and academia. It provided a unique opportunity to technology firms in different verticals including cloud, data center, cybersecurity, ERP, education, banking & finance, health & pharma, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and robotics. The three-day event showcased solutions with a focus on networking, knowledge-sharing, lead generation, and a series of conferences that created a learning environment for like-minded people to share knowledge and experience.

Ignite’s pavilion, featuring diverse start-ups, attracted the attention of many visitors and investors. The start-ups included The Natural Fibers Company (textile, NIC Quetta), Zaibtaan (e-commerce, NIC Quetta), Mixeal (virtual reality, NIC Hyderabad), AgriDuniya ( agri-tech, NIC Hyderabad), Aprus (health-tech, NIC Peshawar), Milkify (agri-tech, NIC Lahore), Parwaaz-e-Umeed (ed-tech, NIC Lahore), YPay (fin-tech, NIC Karachi), HealthSolutions (health-tech, NIC Karachi), Asaani.io (clean-tech, NIC Karachi), HarKaam (services, NIC Karachi), Khaalis (agri-tech, NIC Islamabad), Orbit Ed (ed-tech), and Optera (transmedia).

“We are committed to promoting start-ups to encourage the budding ecosystem of tech innovation in Pakistan,” said Syed Amin-ul-Haque, Federal Minister for IT & Telecom on the occasion.

Ignite CEO Asim Shahryar Husain said, “Ignite has been providing both local and international networking platforms to our start-ups to pitch their business ideas and products to local and international customers and investors. Ignite is launching new initiatives this year including two new incubation centers in Hyderabad and Faisalabad and an accelerator for pre-seed funding of early-stage start-ups. So, Ignite is igniting the start-up ecosystem of Pakistan through multiple projects.”

In 2021, investments in Pakistani start-ups grew by a record five times over 2020 to $373 million. Despite the global downturn in start-up investments, Pakistani start-ups have raised $316 million in 2022 so far. Pakistani start-ups have many good ideas in e-commerce, fintech, retail-tech, agri-tech, ed-tech, and health-tech. They just need funding to scaleup their ideas both locally and globally.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-WealthPak