NIC Islamabad’s Cohort 5 founders continued into the second day of their Founder Institute Mentor Idea Review, once again putting their startup ideas, research, validation, and customer insights to the test in front of a room of experienced mentors. Building on the first day’s sessions, this second round reinforced the underlying premise of the review, that a pitch is only the beginning of the process and that the real value for founders lies in the questions and conversations that follow rather than the initial presentation itself.
Each pitch during the session opened the door to focused conversations, challenging questions, and practical feedback intended to help founders identify gaps in their thinking, rethink assumptions they had taken for granted, and strengthen their overall business models before those models are tested more rigorously by the market. Mentors participating in Day 2 included Salar Malik, General Manager for Sustainability and Innovation at FFC, Tahleel Mumtaz, Deputy Manager in the CEO Secretariat at PSW, Muhammad Ahmed, CEO of SyntecX, and Navera Waheed, Co-Founder and CEO of Orbit Ed. They were joined by Barkan Saeed, Founder of Viztech Solutions, Moon Aamir, CEO of Innoval Technologies, Syed Umair Hassan, Executive Director at Fatima Memorial System, and Salman Ahmed, Senior Manager of Business Development at Cybervision International, alongside returning mentors Karin Wellbrock, Executive and Team Coach at Kay Group KK, and Shahzaib Zulfiqar, Founder and Principal Consultant at Grassroots Foundry.
The session reinforced a broader philosophy underpinning the entire Mentor Idea Review format, that building a scalable startup is not about having all the answers from the outset but about being willing to listen, learn, and continue refining an idea until it can stand on firmer ground. This approach positions the review less as a one-time evaluation and more as an iterative process, with founders expected to return with a stronger, more tested version of their concept after each round of mentor engagement rather than treating any single session as a final verdict on their venture’s viability.
As with the first day, some founders participated virtually while many engaged with mentors in person at NIC Islamabad, ensuring that geographic constraints did not limit access to the same level of mentor engagement across the cohort. The event continued to be supported by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, Tech Destination Pakistan, and Ignite National Technology Fund, with the two-day structure of the Mentor Idea Review reflecting NIC Islamabad’s sustained investment in giving Cohort 5 founders repeated, substantive opportunities to pressure test their ideas ahead of later stages in their entrepreneurial journey.
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