A week-long training for Business Incubation Centers (BICs) was organized in Islamabad by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) as part of the Higher Education Development in Pakistan (HEDP) program.
A renowned non-profit that supports start-up communities, Invest2Innovate (i2i), sponsored the training. Directors/Managers of 17 BICs from universities in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, and AJK were present.
For the personnel of the BICs, HEC has already arranged a number of capacity-building programs. However, the emphasis of this program was on giving businesses total support from introduction and incubation through formal graduation.
The training program was created in accordance with an assessment of the BICs’ needs that was recently conducted one-on-one with each BIC. The training included research and rapid product prototyping, road mapping the start-up’s journey, business development, revenue generation, building a financial narrative, and investment readiness. It also covered every detail of program, design for carrying out a successful incubation program.
Noshaba Awais, Director (R&D) HEC, gave the BIC teams her support, in her opening remarks. The participants were informed of their important roles in the Innovator Seed Fund (ISF) grant throughout the workshop.
ISF is a distinctive national-level seed-funding initiative that HEC is establishing along with its partner BICs in order to offer innovative companies a hybrid format of capacity and seed-funding support. The winners will also get technical assistance from BICs and up to $35,000 in seed money.
The participants acknowledged the HEC team’s efforts and pledged their support in order to overcome any obstacles that successful ISF grantees and future incubates would encounter on their ensuing entrepreneurial path. In his closing remarks, Hazrat Bilal, Director General (Research & Innovation) HEC, thanked the trainers, BIC Directors, and the HEC organizing staff for their efforts.
Additionally, he asked for participants’ input on ways to enhance next BIC training and capacity-building events.
