LAHORE: Pakistani entrepreneurs and startups will have lots of opportunities ahead under the Momentum Pakistan-2018’s ‘Adopt a Startup’ programme.
Tcat Houser, the American author of 50+ books and serial entrepreneurs, Sajid Tarar, the billionaire Pakistani-American entrepreneur and founder of American Muslims for Trump, and Steve Gu, the co-founder of Zapya, one of the world’s biggest peer-to-peer file sharing app, will be mentoring startups under the programme.
Momentum Pakistan 2018 is a one-stop shop that operates through a mega event by bringing opportunities for startups and entrepreneurs of Pakistan. The event will bring together several local and global stakeholders and will be held in Karachi.
The event will feature representatives from Facebook, Amazon Web Service, IBM and Microsoft who will provide technical support, tools, mentoring and funds to the startups and entrepreneurs.
An eco-entrepreneurship system is vital to the success of startups and entrepreneurs where businesses share their tools like Application Programming Interface (API), experience, experts and funds with startups.
“We’re trying to bring about a change in the culture and have convinced several companies and startups to create a greater level of connectivity through opening their APIs to other startups,” said Momentum Pakistan-2018 founder Amir Jafri.
Companies like Telenor and Mobilink have started sharing their APIs with local vendors. That was not the case earlier, said Amir Jafri.
The main focus of the event is to convince Pakistani companies, such as banks, telecom operators and Fintechs, to share their APIs with local startups.
APIs are the defined interfaces through which interactions happen between an enterprise and applications that use its assets. An API approach is an architectural approach that revolves around providing programmable interfaces to a set of services to different applications serving different types of consumers.
Amir Jafri says world-class companies like Facebook Google and Amazon have opened their APIs access to other vendors the world over.
“Take the example of Google map. Other vendors need not go to Google seeking access to its map APP. Instead, they read Google map API and connect it with their programme.”
Just because of this connectivity regime, ride sharing applications like Uber and Cream have revolutionized the ride-sharing the world over.
“Successful startups do not happen in isolation. All startups need APIs,” he said.
The event will also provide startups one-on-one meeting opportunities with investors in its segments ‘Office Hours’. There will be scores of incubators, accelerators, investors, startups, featured startups, global cloud companies, top tech companies, top Fintech (payment enabler) companies, Higher Education Commission funded project showcase, speakers, pitches, and signing of the memorandum of understanding between investors and startups under the one roof.
Startups and entrepreneurs can sign up for admission to this free without any fee.
The two-day event will have warm-up sessions for the participants so that they can get the maximum from the representatives.
“Before coming to the event, participants will be mentored on how to pitch their idea, how to build a team, why international companies are important for their business and why and how they should take care of startups,” says Mr Jafri.