Accelerate Prosperity’s ESO Program, which works with Entrepreneur Support Organisations across Pakistan, brought together representatives from ten such organisations for a five-day ecosystem visit to Istanbul, Türkiye. The visit was structured around direct engagement with the city’s entrepreneurial infrastructure, giving participants exposure to how one of the region’s more developed startup ecosystems has built and sustained its support systems over time, and providing a comparative lens through which participating organisations could examine their own programmes and practices back home.
Over the course of the visit, participants engaged with a range of ecosystem stakeholders including venture capital firms, accelerators, innovation hubs, corporates, and other ecosystem enablers operating within Istanbul’s startup landscape. These engagements covered ground spanning startup support models, investment readiness practices, corporate innovation approaches, and the mechanics of building relationships that sustain an ecosystem over the long term rather than around isolated events or programmes. For organisations tasked with supporting early-stage founders across Pakistan’s various regional hubs, the exposure to how Turkish counterparts structure similar work offered a practical basis for comparison and adaptation.
The visit’s value extended beyond structured knowledge exchange sessions, with the programme also creating space for participants to build relationships with Turkish ecosystem stakeholders and identify potential avenues for future collaboration between the two countries. Organisations represented among the visiting Pakistani delegation included incubation and innovation centres spanning Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Faisalabad, and Hyderabad, alongside specialised centres focused on gaming, animation, aerospace technology, and entrepreneurial development, reflecting the geographic and sectoral breadth of Pakistan’s incubation network. On the Turkish side, participating organisations included venture capital firms and innovation hubs operating across Istanbul’s startup ecosystem.
Following the Istanbul visit, the ESO Program will move into a phase of organisational assessments and post-programme evaluations, intended to help participating organisations translate the insights gathered during the trip into stronger internal programmes and greater impact within their respective local ecosystems. The initiative reflects Accelerate Prosperity’s continued focus on strengthening the institutional capacity of the organisations that support entrepreneurs, rather than working with founders directly, on the premise that the durability of any startup ecosystem depends substantially on the strength of the support structures built around it.
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