The Higher Education Commission, in collaboration with the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme, has announced the jury panel for Perfect Pitch, a nationally televised startup competition organised as part of the Prime Minister’s National Innovation Award. The competition will showcase Pakistan’s emerging entrepreneurs and innovative ideas, with the top fifty startups from across the country given the opportunity to pitch their ideas before the accomplished panel, with five startups competing in each episode for a prize of PKR 1 million.
The jury brings together expertise spanning technology, investment, entrepreneurship, law, digital transformation, and business. Doctor Shoab Ahmed Khan, Chancellor of CASE and Chief Executive Officer of Center for Advanced Research in Engineering, will evaluate submissions focused on new and emerging technologies, bringing a background that includes a PhD from Georgia Tech, five US patents, and more than three hundred and seventy publications. Faisal Aftab, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zayn VC and the first Shark on Shark Tank Pakistan, will assess early stage venture funding proposals, alongside Ashraf Kalim Ahmed, Founding Partner at Magnus Ventures, who will also focus on early stage venture funding.
Industry expertise on the panel includes Asim Ghaffar, Vice President of Engineering at 10Pearls and a TiE Islamabad Board Member with more than twenty years of tech leadership experience, and Aamer Ejaz, President of Jazz Digital Platforms, who brings twenty seven years of leadership experience including launching and scaling Tamasha and SIMOSA, alongside earlier roles heading JazzCash and leading the Mobilink-Warid cellular network merger. Asif Ahmed, Group Chief Business Solutions Officer at PTCL, rounds out the industry expert representation, focusing on digital future and business investment based on decades of experience across PTCL Group and IBM.
Yusuf Hussain, Managing Partner focused on investment advisory and former Chief Executive Officer of Ignite and former Head of HBL Venture Capital Fund, will bring his background in startup funding and ecosystem development to the panel. Darakhshan Sheikh Vohra, Chief Legal Officer and Company Secretary at Raqami Islamic Digital Bank Limited, will serve as the jury’s legal expert, drawing on her extensive expertise in corporate and banking law within the digital banking sector.
Institutional and ecosystem perspectives are represented by Rohma Labeeb, Country Director Pakistan for Accelerate Prosperity, a global initiative of the Aga Khan Development Network, who has supported more than three hundred businesses across emerging markets, and Jehan Ara, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Catalyst Labs, a leading startup accelerator and a key figure in building Pakistan’s tech ecosystem through initiatives including The Nest I/O, +92Disrupt, and Slush’D. Perfect Pitch premieres on the fifth of September, twenty twenty six, on HUM News.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
