The Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry recently hosted a masterclass at the National Incubation Center Sialkot facility, bringing industry experience directly to the startups based there. The session was led by Shahid Khan, a founder of Innovation Skills Institute, a former Senior Global Director for Enterprise and a design thinking expert from Silicon Valley. By holding the masterclass at the incubation center, the chamber placed a session for the city’s business community in the same space where young companies are building their products, which made it easier for founders and established industry figures to meet and work together.
The masterclass centered on one core question: how do we innovate to increase our profits? That question links innovation to a result that every business owner cares about, and it moves the conversation away from innovation as a slogan toward innovation as a way to earn more. Shahid Khan took participants through a deep dive into enterprise transformation, drawing on his experience at the senior level of a global enterprise business and on design thinking methods developed in Silicon Valley. Design thinking is an approach that starts with the needs of users and customers and works toward practical solutions through repeated testing, which is a method that startups can apply from their earliest stage.
The session also connected leading industry experts directly with the startups at the center. Rather than a lecture alone, the format gave founders the chance to work with experienced professionals on their own ventures, and the center described the experience of seeing industry veterans collaborate hands-on with its startups as an incredible one. Sialkot is a city known for exports and manufacturing, and a masterclass that brings together the chamber, incubation center and industry experts reflects the effort to link long-established businesses with new technology companies.
The activity is shared with the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, Ignite National Technology Fund, CyberVision International and Mobilink Bank, the organizations named alongside National Incubation Center Sialkot. For the startups that took part, the masterclass offered a practical view of how innovation can improve profitability and a set of contacts among experienced industry figures, and for the chamber it added to its work of encouraging innovation among the businesses of Sialkot.
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