The National Incubation Center, Karachi in partnership with Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund launched an initiative “Innovating for Poverty Alleviation 2018” to discuss an array of possibilities regarding collaborations between the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund network and the startups incubated at NIC Karachi to alleviate masses from poverty.
Neelam Azmat, Innovative Intervention Specialist at Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF), briefed the audience regarding PPAF’s partnerships across the country and how budding entrepreneurs especially those who are striving to create social impact can benefit from the PPAF community.
“We believe that organized communities are the biggest resource we have”, said Neelam, “that is why building trust with people within a particular rural community is very important”, she added.
She further implored that organisations should apply human centric design concepts during product design and development for the rural consumers, just as they keep urban consumers in mind so as to create an operation base within rural areas, engage the local community and in the long run, alleviate locals from poverty.
“There are areas in Pakistan where people are not literate, yet they ask me ‘Baji aap Facebook pe hain?” [Sister, are you on Facebook?] That is because Social Media is a product that is easy to use. You have to design your product in a similar fashion, to be able to penetrate into big markets; especially the rural ones,” shared Neelam.
Earlier startups incubated at NIC Karachi pitched their ideas in front of an audience. The businesses create social impact and have the potential to spolve problems of Pakistan.
PPAF is partners with 130 organizations and has a presence in 137 districts across Pakistan. It has currently collaborated with 573,000 communities and has completed 38,200 projects related to health, water and education. It has recently collaborated with NIC Karachi to facilitate incubated startups of NIC Karachi through PPAF’s vast network and community to reach out to underprivileged areas in a bid to alleviate the people from poverty.
NIC Karachi is an incubation center located at Main NED University, Karachi, funded by Ignite , Ministry of IT