Dr Faisal Kamiran, founder of Addo AI, has been honoured with the APSUP Excellence Award 2026 for Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year, presented by His Excellency Sardar Saleem Haider Khan, Governor of the Punjab, at a ceremony that brought together distinguished academics, vice chancellors, Chairmen of Boards of Governors, and social entrepreneurs including Dr Amjad Saqib, whose life’s work building institutions and creating social impact gave the evening a weight and context that made the recognition particularly meaningful for Dr Kamiran.
The award came from the Association of Pakistani Scientists and University Professors, with the ceremony chaired by APSUP Chairman Prof Dr Chaudhary Abdul Rehman and attended by Prof Dr Niaz Ahmad, Chairman of the Higher Education Commission. The presence of HEC’s chairman alongside Pakistan’s leading university academics and the Punjab Governor at an event recognising an AI entrepreneur reflects a growing institutional acknowledgement within Pakistan’s academic and governance establishment that technology entrepreneurship, and artificial intelligence specifically, represents one of the most consequential directions in which the country’s research and talent capacity can be channelled.
Dr Kamiran framed the recognition not as an individual milestone but as a reflection of a journey from AI research and academia into entrepreneurship, and as a marker of the broader ambition that motivates Addo AI: demonstrating that world-class technology, talent, and companies can be built from Pakistan with impact that reaches global markets. That ambition sits at the intersection of two important arguments about Pakistan’s position in the global technology economy. The first is that the country’s AI research talent, which has been consistently underestimated by international observers, is capable of producing companies that compete at the highest level. The second is that the pathway from academic research into technology entrepreneurship is one that more Pakistani researchers and scientists should be supported and encouraged to take, rather than remaining confined to academia or exporting their talent to institutions abroad.
The recognition from APSUP, an organisation whose membership spans Pakistan’s most accomplished scientists and university professors, carries particular credibility for an entrepreneur whose company is built on the foundation of serious AI research rather than commercial opportunism. Addo AI’s story, rooted in Dr Kamiran’s academic background and shaped by the ambition to build something globally significant from Pakistan, places it within the larger narrative of Pakistani academic excellence finding commercial expression in ways that create both economic value and national recognition. Dr Kamiran chose to share the recognition with the colleagues, mentors, partners, friends, and family members whose contribution and belief made the journey possible well before any external acknowledgement of its direction or its outcomes was forthcoming.
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