Participants in the Certificate in Entrepreneurship and CITE programs at the Institute of Business Administration in Karachi have completed three sessions built around a single idea: the best startups are not built on ideas alone, they are built on people, processes, and technology. The sessions were organized by the Center for Entrepreneurial Development, Innovation and Research and brought in speakers from human resources, logistics, and the technology community to give founders practical lessons they can apply to their own ventures.
The first session, titled Building a Team that Delivers, was led by Irfan Qamar, Director of Human Resources at the institute, and focused on how to create teams that perform. Early stage founders often hire quickly and learn about management as they go, so guidance on forming, motivating, and keeping a strong team addresses one of the most common causes of startup failure. The second session, Entrepreneurial Operations: Internal Efficiency and Supply Chain Management, was conducted by Rafiq Malik, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of Bykea, who shared how to run lean and keep operations moving. His experience at a company that handles deliveries and rides across Pakistani cities gave participants a view of how logistics and daily operations work at scale.
The third session, Engineering Intelligence into Enterprise, was delivered by Faiza Yousuf, Founder of WomenInTechPK, and brought technology into the center of the conversation about business. For founders who are not engineers, understanding how technology can improve products, processes, and decisions is a growing need, and for technical founders it is a chance to think about how their skills connect to a viable company. Together, the three sessions covered team building, operational efficiency, supply chain management, and technology driven entrepreneurship.
The center said the sessions gave participants practical perspectives that they can apply to their own ventures. The announcement did not say how many participants attended or whether further sessions are planned in the series. What it made clear is that the programs at the institute aim to pair formal teaching with talks from people who have built and run organizations, so that participants hear how the ideas work in practice. For the founders in the room, the three speakers offered a range of viewpoints on the parts of a startup that sit behind the product: the people who build it, the systems that keep it running, and the technology that lets it grow.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
