National Incubation Center Peshawar recently hosted a session with Tahira Kaleem on women’s entrepreneurship, building on the center’s earlier announced program focused on navigating bias and building resilience. The session moved beyond a general discussion of workplace challenges to explore the specific realities women face while building and leading a business, treating the entrepreneurial journey as a subject requiring both practical guidance and honest conversation rather than motivational framing alone.

Kaleem’s discussion centered on the barriers women encounter while scaling a venture, along with strategies for navigating those obstacles without losing momentum. The session placed particular emphasis on sustaining personal well being throughout the entrepreneurial journey, treating burnout and resilience as central concerns for founders rather than secondary considerations to business growth metrics.

Sessions of this kind reflect a broader emphasis within Pakistan’s incubation ecosystem on addressing the structural and personal challenges unique to women entrepreneurs, rather than treating gender as incidental to program design. National Incubation Center Peshawar has increasingly built such sessions into its curriculum as part of a wider effort to support founders navigating both business and identity related hurdles simultaneously.

The event was supported by institutional partners including Ignite, LMKR, Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, LMKT, and Orbit Startups, along with academic and industry collaborators such as Sybrid, IM Sciences, Rehman Medical Institute, CECOS University, and Frontier Platinum. The session adds to National Incubation Center Peshawar’s ongoing Cohort 16 programming, which has continued to combine technical and business curriculum with sessions addressing the human dimensions of entrepreneurship.

Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.