TiE Islamabad has entered a strategic partnership with Bykea Technologies under the Digitalization for Women’s Economic Empowerment program, a joint initiative funded by UN Women and KOICA aimed at closing the gap between young women and digital economy jobs in Pakistan. The memorandum of understanding formalizes a collaboration that will open remote and in-person internships, job placements, and career development pathways for young women in Peshawar, Mardan, and Swabi, three cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where structured access to tech sector opportunities has historically lagged behind larger urban centers.
The partnership places Bykea, a mobility and logistics platform that has built out delivery and ride-hailing operations across Pakistan, in a direct role supporting workforce development rather than simply offering token internship slots. As part of the agreement, Bykea has also committed to adopting UN Women’s Women’s Empowerment Principles, a framework that pushes companies to embed measurable standards around workplace equality, safety, and inclusion into their internal practices rather than treating gender inclusion as a one-off initiative.
For TiE Islamabad, the collaboration extends a broader mandate around entrepreneurship and economic development into direct workforce access, using a private sector partner with established regional operations to reach young women in cities outside Pakistan’s traditional tech hubs of Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad. The D4WEE program’s structure, backed jointly by UN Women and the Korea International Cooperation Agency, reflects a growing pattern of international development funding being channeled through local tech and entrepreneurship organizations rather than delivered directly, allowing programs to plug into existing private sector infrastructure like Bykea’s operational footprint.
The focus on Peshawar, Mardan, and Swabi specifically signals an intent to address regional disparities in tech access within Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where young women often face more constrained pathways into formal employment compared to peers in other provinces. If the internship and placement pipeline scales as intended, the partnership could offer a model for how mobility and logistics companies, sectors not traditionally associated with gender inclusion work, can be brought into structured economic empowerment programs through targeted MoUs rather than broad corporate social responsibility commitments.
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