Aitizaz Hassan

Fintech startup Zindigi Prize is going to be Pakistan's largest social entrepreneurship programme, launched recently with the objective to help the university students give their ideas practical shape. It also aims to ensure public-private collaboration for wider outreach and awareness to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Talking to WealthPK, Imran Jattala, Chief Executive Officer of Innovators Garage, a global management consulting firm, said social entrepreneurship is an approach by individuals, groups, startup companies or entrepreneurs, by which they developed, funded and implemented solutions to social, cultural or environmental issues. “This concept may be applied to a wide range of organisations, which vary in size, aims and beliefs.”

He said that Zindigi Prize is Pakistan’s largest social entrepreneurship programme, under which students from over 100 universities will be funded with prizes ranging from Rs5 million to Rs30 million to put their ideas into practice. He said the startup would also train 100,000 students to encourage them to start their own ventures. “Sanitation and hygiene are big challenges in the country, and if we mobilise and motivate entrepreneurship in these areas, they can be addressed to a great extent,” said Imran Jattala, who will be the master trainer in the newly-established startup. He said that the best social enterprise examples in Pakistan are EasyPaisa, Bykeya and Food Panda, which are lifting tens of thousands of people out of poverty.

Imran Jattala highlighted that Zindigi Prize could be a game-changer for Pakistan as it can transform the country’s higher education sector into an engine for economic growth. “This could help build Pakistan into a top-50 innovative nation and a $500-billion innovation economy by 2030.” “The idea of social entrepreneurship is neither a charity nor a corporate social responsivity. Such kind of entrepreneurship solves the problem though money investment. Social entrepreneurship presents a business idea on a social model,” Imran Jattala said. Zindagi Prize was formally launched at National Incubation Centre (NIC), Islamabad, recently.

Fajer Rabia Pasha, CEO of the Pakistan Alliance for Girls Education (PAGE), during a panel discussion at the launch event, said special centres of social entrepreneurship should be launched to promote social entrepreneurship concept. She said federal minister for planning and development Ahsan Iqbal, during his earlier stint as the minister, had promised building a social entrepreneurship centre, and hoped that the minister would honour his commitment.
Rabia Pasha said, “we want to make girls skillful and bring them to tech mainstream.” Currently only one out of 13 girls could make it to a university.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk