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Technology

First Pakistani Startup receives investment directly from Gates Foundation

First Pakistani Startup has received an investment directly from the Bill & Gates Foundation to develop innovative Artificial Intelligence models for data collection. The startup is aiming to disrupt $75 Billion market research industry using recent advances in Artificial Intelligence. An industry expert familiar with the company termed it as an “uber” for field data collection, where SurveyAuto relies on local community members with smartphones to report data rather than…

Women in STEM: NUST student lands job at Fortune 500 firm after winning competition in Hungary

Twenty-year old Misbah Hamid, a final year student at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Islamabad, will get a job at one of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, MOL Group, after winning a competition for female engineering students in Budapest. She also won over half a million rupees (€3,000) in prize money along with future trips to the Hungarian capital for training and development, and…

‘Full potential of youth, women will be unleashed,’ says PM on launch of Digital Pakistan Vision

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday said that with the introduction of the ‘Digital Pakistan Vision’, the full potential of the contribution of youth and the women to the economy will be unleashed. According to a press release from the Prime Minister Office: “The Vision sets Pakistan’s digital ambition and has been designed for the government and the private sector to work towards a digitally progressive and inclusive Pakistan.” Speaking…

SECP launches Startup Portal to encourage tech innovation

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has launched an exclusive Startup portal to encourage technology innovation in Pakistan. SECP Commissioner for Information System and Technology Department, Shauzeb Ali inaugurated the portal during the ‘Startup Grind Pakistan’ conference in Islamabad. The portal features list of startups, simplified user experience for registration, access to mentors and incubation centres, online guides and video tutorials for Startup companies. “The SECP startup portal…

Ride hailing app Grab to begin services in Pakistan

After Uber and Careem, Singapore-based ride hailing app Grab has announced to offer its services in Pakistan from next year, alongside 13 other countries in the Middle East and in Japan. Grab is a Singaporean multinational ridesharing company and also offers food delivery and digital payments services via mobile app. According to Grab, the rides in Pakistan and the Middle East would be facilitated through the Careem app, while bookings in Japan…

Kamyab Jawan’s startup program to engage 100,000 students for new technologies

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Youth Affairs Programme (PMYAP) has planned to launch ‘Start-up Pakistan Programme’ under ‘Kamyab Jawan Programme’ engage 100,000 students to learn new technologies. According to an official source, the objective of the said programme was to train one million students from different universities and technical colleges across the country. He said that the programme would provide support to all universities and vocational training centres in developing capacity in…

Pakistan’s first homegrown messaging app raises $1.6 million in funding

TelloTalk, Pakistan’s first homegrown and locally hosted messaging platform, has raised $1.6 million in funding from a consortium of international and domestic investors, a press release issued by the company on Wednesday said. The round of funding, known as the ‘Seed Round’, included global venture funds ALM Holdings (UAE), SparkLabs FinTech (Asia), One Market Capital (USA) and Cocoon Ignite Ventures (Hong Kong), besides local institutional investors TPL eVentures, and i2i…

Egyptian startup Swvl plans to invest $25 million in Pakistan by 2021

Islamabad: Egyptian bus transportation network company Swvl plans to invest $25 million in Pakistan in the next 18 months and create more than 10,000 jobs, the Pakistan general manager of the ride-hailing app told Arab News on Tuesday. Swvl, founded in 2017 by Mostafa Kandil, operates in more than five countries, running buses along fixed routes and allowing customers to reserve and pay for rides using an app. Rates are…