NIC Sialkot hosted an insightful session for Cohort 1 startups, led by Aurangzeb Rao, Manager Technical Evaluation at Ignite National Technology Fund. The session introduced founders to the Prime Minister’s SPARK and ELEVATE initiative, designed to support deep tech research, innovation, and commercialization across Pakistan.
This session gave NIC Sialkot’s inaugural cohort direct exposure to a government backed initiative specifically focused on advancing deep tech ventures, an area that often requires longer development timelines and more specialised technical infrastructure compared to conventional software or consumer facing startups. The SPARK and ELEVATE initiative’s focus on research, innovation, and commercialization reflects a structured pathway intended to help move technically sophisticated research from academic or laboratory settings toward genuine market application.
Founders explored how strong ideas can move beyond the lab, unlock opportunities, and grow into solutions with real market potential. This framing directly addresses a persistent challenge for deep tech and research linked ventures, where technically impressive innovations sometimes fail to translate into commercially viable products due to gaps in market validation, business model development, or commercialization strategy.
Rao’s role as Manager Technical Evaluation at Ignite National Technology Fund gave him direct insight into how such deep tech ventures are typically assessed and supported at a national policy level, positioning him to speak to both the criteria SPARK and ELEVATE applies and the broader vision behind the initiative’s design. This kind of direct access to government technical evaluation expertise offers Cohort 1 founders perspective they might not otherwise easily obtain.
As one of NIC Sialkot’s early sessions for its first cohort, this introduction to SPARK and ELEVATE adds to the incubator’s foundational programming aimed at equipping founders with awareness of the broader national funding and support ecosystem available to them, beyond NIC Sialkot’s own direct incubation support. The session reflects the incubator’s continued effort to connect its founder community with relevant government initiatives that could support their ventures’ progression from early stage research toward commercially viable, market ready solutions.
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