Continuing with its tradition of supporting Pakistan’s startup ecosystem, Ignite National Technology Fund, a public sector company with Ministry of IT & Telecom, participated in this year’s ITCN Asia with fourteen exciting startups from different National Incubation Centers. 21st ITCN Asia Information Technology & Telecom Show is being held at Expo Center Karachi from 24th to 26th August. Chief Guest for the opening ceremony was Syed Amin ul Haque, Federal Minister for IT & Telecom. The event was attended by guests from IT ministry, IT firms, startups and academia. The event provides a unique opportunity to technology firms in different verticals including Cloud, Data Center, Cybersecurity, ERP, Education, Banking & Finance, Health & Pharma, Ecommerce, Artificial Intelligence, and Robotics. The three-day event showcases solutions with a focus on networking, knowledge-sharing, lead generation, and a series of conferences that create a learning environment for like-minded people to share knowledge and experiences. Ignite’s pavilion featuring diverse startups attracted the attention of visitors and investors. The startups included The Natural Fibers Company (Textile, NIC Quetta), Zaibtaan (Ecommerce, NIC Quetta), Mixeal (Virtual Reality, NIC Hyderabad), AgriDuniya ( Agritech, NIC Hyderabad), Aprus (Health Tech, NIC Peshawar), Milkify (Agritech, NIC Lahore), Parwaaz-e-Umeed (EdTech, NIC Lahore), YPay (FinTech, NIC Karachi), HealthSolutions (HealthTech, NIC Karachi), Asaani.io (Cleantech, NIC Karachi), HarKaam (Services, NIC Karachi), Khaalis (AgriTech, NIC Islamabad), Orbit Ed (Edtech), and Optera (Transmedia). “We are committed to promoting startups to encourage the budding ecosystem of tech innovation in Pakistan,” said Syed Amin ul Haque, Federal Minister for IT & Telecom. Speaking on the occasion, CEO Ignite Asim Shahryar Husain said, “Ignite has been providing both local and international networking platforms to our startups 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 centres in Hyderabad and Faisalabad and an accelerator for pre-seed funding of early stage startups. So, Ignite is igniting the startup ecosystem of Pakistan through multiple projects.” In 2021, investment in Pakistani startups grew by a record five times over 2020 to $373 million. Despite the global downturn in startup investments, Pakistani startups have raised $316 million in 2022 so far. Pakistani startups have many good ideas in ecommerce, fintech, retailtech, agritech, edtech, and healthtech. They just need funding to scaleup their ideas both locally and globally.
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