CIRCLE with Plan9 brings She Loves Tech competition to Pakistan
Tech Innovation comes to the forefront in Lahore when CIRCLE introduces Global StartUp Competition, She Loves Tech at Plan9!
CIRCLE, with Plan9 Incubator, brought She Loves Tech, a Global Startup Competition to Lahore this week. The event highlighted tech innovation for and by women. Speakers included Sadia Khan, CEO of Autosoft Dynamics, Jamil Goheer, Co-Founder of Kualitatem, Danielle Sharaf, Director Products & Strategy at Switch, Mehvish Arifeen, Founder of Gharpar and Sadia Malick, Business Partner at Inaara Capital.
Nabeel A. Qadeer, Director of Entrepreneurship & Enterprise Development at Plan9, PITB, welcomed the group by saying. “Women entrepreneurship, at this point, is essential for our country and by partnering with Circle Pakistan and She Loves Tech, we aim to encourage and facilitate women across the country to be self-sufficient.”
Amra Mubashir and Amna Quraishi from the CIRCLE Women & Business Chapter shared CIRCLE’s mission and briefed the audience on She Loves Tech. CIRCLE Pakistan, founded by Sadaffe Abid, former COO and CEO of Kashf Foundation, is a partner for She Loves Tech. CIRCLE focuses on women’s economic inclusion and leadership development with the mission to develop and build the entrepreneurial and leadership capacity of women in Pakistan.
Khan, CEO of Autosoft Dynamics, a leader in banking automation, emphasized the power of perseverance to the gathered crowd of startups and entrepreneurs at Arfa Tower. The session included a conversation with Danielle Sharaf who encouraged women’s participation in tech, through mentoring and networking.
Plan9 is Pakistan’s largest tech incubator and has graduated 130 startups in the past 5 years. As champions of women’s entrepreneurial and tech ambition, they encouraged female-led startups to participate in She Loves Tech.
The She Loves Tech Global StartUp Competition is aimed at promising women entrepreneurs and women-impact startups around the world, offering them a unique opportunity to showcase their businesses to a global audience of investors and influencers from the tech community. She Loves Tech Pakistan 2017 is the Pakistan round of the competition, hosted by CIRCLE. Entries for the competition are now open and 23rd June is the deadline to enter.
The winning team from Pakistan will go on to pitch at the global finals of the She Loves Tech 2017 Global Startup Competition (September 16, 2017) in China and participate in an immersive week-long boot camp (September 11-15, 2017) consisting of talks and panels, visits to leading tech companies, networking opportunities, and personalized pitch preparation workshops. Throughout this time, Teja Ventures, a venture capital fund with a gender lens, SOSV, #1 in VC seed funding for female-founded startups (TechCrunch), and other affiliate funds of the She Loves Tech global initiative will be actively looking to invest in women impact startups from the competition.
To get involved with She Loves Tech or for more information, visit: www.shelovestech.org
