The Indus Policy and Strategic Economic Collective is hosting Screen to Scale, a panel discussion on Pakistan’s creator economy, on September 24, 2026, at IBA City Campus in Karachi, bringing together media executives, journalists, and marketing leaders to examine where content creation is heading as an economic sector in its own right rather than a side activity adjacent to entertainment. The event runs in partnership with IBA’s Center for Executive Education and Center for Excellence in Journalism, positioning it as much an academic and policy conversation as an industry one.
The panel, titled Pakistan’s Creator Economy and What the Future Holds, brings together a notably cross-disciplinary lineup. Zeba Qureshi, Creator and Marketing Lead for EMEA at YouTube with prior experience at TikTok, Amazon, and the BBC, offers a platform-side view of how creator monetization actually works at a structural level. Jarri Masood Zaidi, CEO of NAPA, and Selina Rashid, President of PREDA, add institutional perspectives from the arts and real estate development sectors respectively, while Sidra Iqbal, an award-winning journalist, and Duraid Qureshi, CEO of HUM Network, bring both editorial and traditional broadcast media viewpoints into a conversation that increasingly involves traditional media companies competing with, or absorbing, independent creators.
That mix of speakers reflects a genuine tension shaping Pakistan’s media landscape, where established broadcasters like HUM Network are having to reckon with independent creators who now command audiences and monetization capabilities that rival traditional television, while global platforms like YouTube are actively courting that same creator base with infrastructure and monetization tools built specifically for them. Framing the discussion as policy and strategy focused, rather than purely a celebration of creator success stories, suggests IPSEC intends to address the more structural questions facing the sector, including how creators are taxed, protected, and supported as their work increasingly functions as a formal economic activity rather than a hobby.
The event opens with a welcome note from Farhan Ahmed, CEO of Narrativez and Co-Founder of IPSEC, and closes with a vote of thanks from Kamran Bilgrami, Director of CEE-IBA and President of OPEN Karachi, with support from OPEN Karachi and Narrativez powering the event. Running by invitation only, Screen to Scale signals an attempt to bring senior media, policy, and platform voices into a focused room rather than a large public conference, aiming for a substantive conversation about the creator economy’s next phase in Pakistan rather than a broader awareness event.
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