The Center for Entrepreneurial Development, Innovation and Research at the Institute of Business Administration Karachi is hosting a week of sessions from 12 to 17 October 2026 for founders and participants who want to build ventures that are ready to grow. The week moves from numbers to people and from products to operations, and it covers customer profiling, financial foundations, unit economics, team building, product thinking and operational efficiency. Each topic is taught by faculty or industry leaders who bring real world experience to the room.
The line-up combines practitioners and academics. Zainab Faisal, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Consumer Connect, leads the work on understanding customers. Mohsin Patel, Assistant Professor at the Institute’s School of Business Studies, and Dr Syed Sharjeel Hasnie, Assistant Professor in the Department of Accounting and Law, bring the financial side. Irfan Qamar, Director of the Human Resources Department at the Institute, covers how to build a team. Rafiq Malik, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Bykea, speaks from the experience of running operations at a company that has grown from a Karachi startup into a national platform, and Faiza Yousuf, Founder of WomenInTechPK, a software engineer with more than 14 years of experience in building products and teams, completes the group.
The week fits with the sessions the center has been running for founders in Karachi. Earlier this week, Zainab Faisal led a session on customer profiling and ideal customer profile analysis, and Mohsin Ali Patel led a session on financial foundations and accounting for Cohort 2 founders of Sindh Enterprise Incubation Center, held with the same center. Putting these topics together within six days gives participants a connected view of how a business works, from who the customer is to what each sale costs, how much cash is left and who will deliver the product.
Early stage founders often learn these subjects one at a time and in different places, and the gaps between them are where many ventures stumble. A week that covers them in one sequence, taught by people who have run teams and companies, offers a practical base for the next stage of growth. The programme runs at the institute in Karachi, and details on participation are available through the official channels of the center.
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