NIC Sialkot welcomed the WEBPA project team, a collaboration between SMEDA and JICA, to its space, where they could engage with the incubator’s startups, learn about their journeys, and experience its entrepreneurial ecosystem firsthand. The visit gave the visiting team direct exposure to Cohort 1’s founders, offering insight into how NIC Sialkot’s early stage incubation model operates in practice.
During the visit, both teams exchanged ideas on fostering innovation and empowering the local startup ecosystem, reflecting a two way dialogue rather than a purely observational tour. Miki Uematsu, Deputy Chief Advisor for WEBPA, and her team introduced WEBPA, the Women Entrepreneurs Booster Package, a five year SMEDA-JICA initiative running from 2026 to 2030, aimed at empowering two thousand women and transgender entrepreneurs across Punjab.
The scale and duration of WEBPA, spanning five years and targeting two thousand entrepreneurs specifically, reflects a substantial, long term commitment to supporting underrepresented entrepreneurs within Punjab’s business ecosystem. The initiative’s inclusion of transgender entrepreneurs alongside women reflects a broader and more inclusive approach to economic empowerment than programmes focused solely on gender based inclusion.
As a joint initiative between SMEDA, Pakistan’s Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority, and JICA, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, WEBPA brings together domestic institutional knowledge with international development expertise and funding, a common structure for large scale, multi-year economic empowerment programmes operating within Pakistan.
The visit adds to NIC Sialkot’s continued pattern of hosting external institutional visitors to its Cohort 1 space, following its recent session introducing founders to the SPARK and ELEVATE initiative. Both organisations described looking forward to building stronger connections and creating greater impact together, suggesting this initial visit could lead to further collaboration between WEBPA and NIC Sialkot in supporting women and transgender entrepreneurs within the broader Sialkot and Punjab entrepreneurial ecosystem.
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