The School of Art, Design and Architecture at the National University of Sciences and Technology visited the National Science and Technology Park, bringing 50 freshman students to an interactive session on innovation and entrepreneurship. The students were introduced to the startup community at the park, its incubation programmes and the opportunities it offers to aspiring entrepreneurs. For first year students who are only beginning their degrees, an early look at how a startup works and what support is available on their own campus can shape how they think about their studies and what they might build once they graduate.
The visit featured mimAR, a startup based at the park that was founded by graduates of the School of Art, Design and Architecture shortly after they finished their degrees. The team presented its work and demonstrated its solutions, showing the students how ideas developed within the university can grow into ventures that address real world needs. mimAR works in architectural visualisation and rendering, and it has previously been one of four startups from the park to win seed funding of 35,000 dollars each through the Innovator Seed Fund of the Higher Education Commission. Meeting founders who sat in the same classrooms only a few years earlier gave the freshmen a concrete example of a path from design student to company founder.
National Science and Technology Park is Pakistan’s first science and technology park and sits inside the university’s Islamabad campus. It runs Hatch 8, a pre-incubation programme for idea stage entrepreneurs, and Cube 8, an incubation programme that startups can join after graduating from Hatch 8, and more than 100 technology companies and startups operate from its premises. Students who visit the park can therefore see the whole path, from early idea to a growing business, within the university.
The session highlighted the value of entrepreneurship in turning ideas into practical solutions and gave students a closer look at opportunities within the university’s innovation ecosystem. For a school whose students work in design, art and architecture, fields where creative skills can be turned into products, services and studios, the message was that a career can include building a company as well as joining one.
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