Pakistan’s National Science & Technology Park (NSTP), home to more than 60 companies, is boosting the growth of its startups though nurturing environment and enabling ecosystem.
The park offers Hatch 8 pre-incubation, Cube 8 incubation and Excelerate acceleration programmes for startups in early, mid and late stage of their lifecycle. Cube 8 programme is designed to offer its residents an independent office in a fully enabled 24/7 facility, guidance from mentors and coaches, and networking opportunities though access to resident companies, partners and international associations. Moreover, startup founders and employees get the opportunity to enhance their skills though workshops and trainings organized by NSTP on regular basis.
Currently, there are 24 startups incubated in Cube 8. In AgriTech, Chatha Bio Care is preparing nitrogen-fixing bacteria and inoculants to improve plant health and soil fertility, DairyHawk is working on mobile herd management solutions and predictive analytics for dairy farmers, WaterSprint (http://watersprint.io/) offers guidance to farmers regarding requirement of irrigation, and usage of fertilizers and pesticides and Qurbani App (http://qurbaniapp.com/) provides a platform for users to buy and sell livestock animals.
Auto Canvas (http://autocanvas.ai/) uses consumer-grade dashcams to provide driving scenarios for testing self-driving cars whereas Yomi is working on a subscription based smart carpooling system for daily commuters. In DefTech, Rapics (https://rapics.ae/) is offering command and control center solution for secure communication, Orel Vision (https://orelvision.com/) is working on drones for concealed weapon detection whereas Zambeel (https://www.zambeel.ltd/) is working on designing defence support equipment. Comma (http://commaservices.net/) offers integrated solution for skills assessment and development, EDWIZ’s (http://www.edwiz.net/) product SKIP manages schools’ resources and makes class learning more efficient while SWAM Tech (http://chem.mysticbots.com/) helps students learn chemistry though the use of AR technology.
In EnergyTech, AMT ELECTRIC (http://www.amt-electric.com/) aims to build a system integrator to connect different types of devices used across power generation and energy management sectors whereas Med Deliver plans to offer medicine delivery and patient tracking service through its mobile app in HealthTech sector. Block 360 (https://www.block360.io/) is working to improve the data integrity using blockchain technology having already developed cryptocurrencies and trading platform, Blockley aims to decrease customer onboarding costs for banks by linking their databases whereas Dadajee.com is developing an ecommerce platform for toys in FinTech sector.
Asasa.com provides a smart web platform for buying real estate, ReadAct.ai helps organizations understand and retrieve intelligent information from unstructured documents, Spacesly (https://spacesly.com/) aims to build a real-time marketplace for booking space for events, Abc Data (https://www.abcdata.org/) offers big data solutions to help clients achieve strategic objectives, ZEKI Expert Solutions (www.zekiexperts.com) works in IOT, robotics and semantics-based web applications, ToyCycle (https://toy-cycle.org/) is a managed marketplace for toys and baby gear in the US and dataBI (http://databi.co/) helps the retail industry stay abreast of latest shopping trends by applying customer analytics. These startups are working in variety of areas in the SmartTech sector.
To induct more startups in the programme, the 8th Startup Selection Board was recently held at NSTP where startups pitched their idea to a panel comprising of industry, sectoral, academic and in-house expert. Results of the selection board will be announced soon and 5-6 startups are expected to join the Cube 8 programme.
Find out more about NSTP at https://nstp.pk/.
