Finding qualified teachers for one’s educational needs is challenging at times and so is supplementing the income, in case you are a teacher, by reaching out to students in need of private tuitions. However, Anas Arshad of the Karachi University’s IT department has come up with an idea that solves this problem by serving as a bridge between teachers and students.
Instructifier.com, Arshad’s brainchild, was very well received at Probattle 2016, an annual competition of IT-based projects that takes place at Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi. It was recognised as the best business idea because of its sustainability.
The minds behind the winning idea, Anas Arshad and his mates, presented a design for an online teaching portal where students could find teachers and vice versa. The portal included teachers’ evaluation and reviews to assure accountability and standard.
“I wish to provide a platform where teachers could find jobs easily. There are plenty of low and middle-income people who want to teach but are unable to find considerable tutoring opportunities,” said Anas after winning the competition.
Anas has been working on his business idea for more than a year now. He had applied at IBA’s incubator center twice but could not be recruited on account of infant planning and busy school schedules.
Explaining, the aspiring entrepreneur said: “I came up with this idea long ago but due to financial and other constraints I could not materialise it. I have been working to model the venture for the last seven months and if all goes as planned, I hope to launch it by June.”
Some 50 participants, rounding up to form 11 teams, participated in the competition held at the event hall of IBA Alumni Center. The teams included IT students from NUST, FAST and the UBIT Department of University of Karachi.
“IT and the digital market have extensive scope for virtual businesses. By organising this business idea competition, we have tried to endow IT students with an opportunity to enter the world of entrepreneurship,” said the head organiser of the event, Syed Azfar Hassan.
All of the teams presented a business idea with a feasibility report and the live demo. The theme was to present an IT-based business idea and the participants had to emphasise mainly on the sustainability, profitability and the future scope of the venture.
Adnan Mehmood (Senior Executive CED), Arsalan Waseem (Co-Founder Dosark), Sohaib Saleem (Co-Founder wukla.com) and Marium Hussain (HR Business Analyst, TRG) were the judges for the event who evaluated the ventures mainly on the basis of fruitfulness, viability and scope.
Dosark, an IT firm established by two IBA alumni, promised up to Rs 1,00,000 in seed money and complete administrative support to Instructifier against an undisclosed share in the ownership of the start-up.
Co-founder at Dosark and one of the judges of the competition, Arsalan Waseem, said: “We saw great potential in all the ideas. The concept behind the competition is to provide a kick start to young entrepreneurs. He also added that his team at Dosark was looking forward to provide all possible support to Instructifier.com.
Established in the year 1955, the IBA has strived to contribute in the field of business for more than 60 years. Another attempt was registered in the year 2012 with the establishment of Aman-CED (Center for Entrepreneurial Development), a center for training and research on entrepreneurship that advances the growth of new enterprises in Pakistan.
