The KSBL Entrepreneurship Society held its inaugural entrepreneurship hackathon, ELXR 26, built around a single bold challenge centred on import substitution. Rather than asking participants to build a generic startup idea, organisers challenged teams to identify enterprise software that Pakistan still imports and build a viable local alternative, giving the hackathon a specific, economically grounded focus rather than an open ended prompt.
The hackathon drew more than 100 applicants, with 70 participants advancing to a bootcamp phase before 10 finalist teams pitched their solutions to a panel of industry leaders. The event culminated in PKR 425,000 in cash prizes distributed among the strongest teams, giving participants a tangible incentive alongside the exposure and mentorship built into the programme’s structure.
Organising the event required months of planning across sponsorship outreach, bootcamp logistics, budgeting and vendor coordination, reflecting the level of operational work required to run a hackathon with this scale of participation and prize structure. The event’s Platinum Sponsor, National Foods Limited, provided backing that helped make the scale of the programme possible, while a core executive team supported the planning and execution throughout the process.
The choice of import substitution as ELXR 26’s central theme reflects a broader economic conversation in Pakistan around reducing reliance on imported software and building domestic alternatives capable of serving local enterprise needs. By framing the hackathon around a specific, tangible economic problem rather than a generic startup pitch competition, organisers aimed to push participants toward solutions with a clearer commercial rationale and market gap already identified, rather than requiring teams to first discover a problem worth solving from scratch.
With its first edition now complete, ELXR 26 adds to the growing landscape of university led entrepreneurship hackathons in Pakistan, distinguished by its specific focus on import substitution and its emphasis on building software solutions with direct economic relevance. Organisers have described the event as only the beginning, suggesting further editions or related programming may follow as the KSBL Entrepreneurship Society builds on the foundation established through this inaugural hackathon.
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