More than 230 Freshman students from the Department of Software Engineering at NUST’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science visited the National Science and Technology Park across two sessions, giving first-year students direct exposure to a working startup ecosystem before most of them have even completed a full year of university coursework. Engineer Amer Sheikh, Director of NSTP, welcomed the students personally, introducing them to the Park’s startup community, incubation programs, and the range of opportunities available within NSTP, drawing on his own professional background to encourage students to consider entrepreneurship and build confidence in pursuing ventures of their own.
Introducing entrepreneurship this early in a student’s academic path, rather than waiting until later years when career paths tend to feel more fixed, gives NSTP a chance to shape how an entire incoming cohort thinks about their options well before graduation. For many freshman students, a visit like this one may be their first real exposure to startups as a viable path alongside conventional employment, particularly for those without prior family or personal connections to entrepreneurship.
The sessions included direct interaction with Cube 8 startup founders, including Mydah Nasir and Alina Nasir of OfficeFlowAi, an AI-focused venture, and Zoolnurain Zulfiqar, founder of Fusion Tech. Having founders speak directly about their products, startup journeys, and experiences building within NSTP gave students a grounded, firsthand account of what founding a company actually involves, beyond the more abstract encouragement students often receive about entrepreneurship as a general concept. Students also toured NSTP’s facilities, getting a closer look at the technologies, teams, and businesses operating within the Park rather than hearing about them secondhand.
For NSTP, engaging an entire freshman cohort this early builds a longer-term pipeline of potential future founders who have already seen the Park’s ecosystem firsthand, well before they would typically encounter it through formal incubation applications later in their degree. The visit reflects a broader pattern among Pakistan’s university-linked science parks of treating entrepreneurship exposure as something to introduce from day one of a student’s academic journey, connecting classroom learning with real startup experience within the NUST innovation ecosystem from the earliest possible stage.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
