National Incubation Center Peshawar has welcomed students from Islamia College University Peshawar for an outreach session that introduced them to the incubation journey and the support available to aspiring founders. The session was framed as an introduction to where ideas can lead, and it encouraged students to explore entrepreneurship and take the first steps toward turning their ideas into businesses. For many students, a visit of this kind is the first time they see how an idea moves from a classroom discussion to a registered company with customers, a team and a product.
Outreach sessions on campuses and at incubators are an important part of how national incubation centres find new founders. Most students graduate without having seen how an incubator works, what it asks of applicants or what it offers in return, and these visits help close that gap. By hosting the students at the center itself, the team was able to show them the workspace where startups build their products, explain how the programme runs and describe the mentorship, training and networking that selected teams receive. Students who attended also gained a clearer idea of how to prepare their ideas and what to expect from the application process.
National Incubation Center Peshawar was established in 2017 and works to foster innovation, entrepreneurship and technology development in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It operates with funding from Ignite National Technology Fund under the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, and since a recent agreement it has been run by a consortium led by LMKR. The incubation programme has supported more than 200 startups, which have generated revenues and attracted investments of over PKR 7 billion, and its latest phase is backed by more than 80 ecosystem supporters that add resources and opportunities for the startups in its cohorts.
For Peshawar, where a large student population studies at some of the oldest institutions in the province, regular contact between universities and the incubator can widen the pool of young founders. Students who learn about the incubation journey early can start shaping their final year projects and early ventures with a business in mind, and those who are ready can apply to future cohorts. The session at National Incubation Center Peshawar was a step in that direction, and it reflects the center’s aim of reaching aspiring entrepreneurs before they have graduated and giving them the support to turn ideas into businesses.
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