LUMS, the nation’s most prestigious higher education institution, built the Center for Entrepreneurship with the vision to make it the largest breeding ground for sustainable, high-growth and high-impact businesses in Pakistan.

The management of the center, headed by Mr. Khurram Zafar, an entrepreneur himself, as well as an independent council of leading entrepreneurs of the country scout for promising upstart businesses all over Pakistan and inducts the most promising ones into this four month program. The Foundation offers co-working space, utilities, internet, and other administrative support to the startups as well as access to a network of world-class mentors, business leaders and investors who guide and groom these young, passionate entrepreneurs. The center is also collaborating with investors to put together a seed stage investment fund for the startups as well as collaborate with business center developers to offer subsidized office space to the graduates of the Foundation program.

The teams that have been inducted as the first batch of The Foundation includes, Cognitica which develops augmented reality based mobile and marketing solutions. Beed, based on research done at LUMS, this team is working on making all broadcast content interactive with the aid of smart phones. Savaree, this company is building a trust-based, ride share social network that allows drivers to monetize the free passenger seats in their cars by posting routes and connecting with riders that share that route. Bugdev Studios, a team of very passionate mobile game developers and designers that build and publish creative, fun, action-packed games that make people think, feel and enjoy.

Other start-ups include BizClout, a one-stop solution to fully e-commerce enable SMEs with-in 15 minutes using a proprietary content management and ecommerce platform. The company offers value-added products to promote and market these online brands as well. MARO, oven baked bread (tandoori Roti and Naan) is one of the most commonly consumed food item in Pakistan and MARO aims to setup a network of ‘Tandoors’ that provide healthy bread and an immaculate consumer experience at the same price as traditional ‘Tandoors’. Appography, the company aims to improve the customer experience by introducing a visual navigation IVR (Interactive Voice Response), in a clutter-free, simplified and more consumable manner on customer smart phones.

Speaking about the Center, the Executive Director, Mr. Khurram Zafar said “Entrepreneurship is the future of our country and LCE aims to scout the best entrepreneurs from all over Pakistan and provide them everything they need to succeed and turn their dreams into realities.”

The Foundation is one of the many innovative projects under the LCE banner with other centers in progress such as the Skills Commercialization Centre and a Corporate Innovation Center amongst others.

I think it was the start of the second quarter of 2007 when during a meeting at LUMS, somebody told me that there is a guy in town named Ahmad Murad Akhter who is the CEO of a company called SMCo. Technologies and has formed a website called MobileGames.PK. I didn’t pay much attention to it then. September 2007, one of my seniors at FAST-NU while strolling with me at the driveway of NUCES Lahore Campus told me that he has joined Murad’s company as a Software Engineer. The only expression at my face at that point of time was “A Proper Game Development Company in Pakistan?”. By that time, I didn’t know about Shehryar Hydri’s ventures as well. I felt that Murad is just having fun and his adventure would be over in next couple of months as they would not be able to compete with GameDev Giants. I couldn’t have been more wrong. They survived and currently are one of the biggest game development companies in Pakistan.

Murad, who also later turned out to be the cousin of one of my good childhood friends did set an example for those who wanted to pursue game development in Pakistan. He graduated from Stanford University with an MS in Computer Science and worked in Apple & Microsoft before moving to Pakistan.  A good co-founder is a must for a startup company who is at your back, understands your vision and supports you at every wild decision that the chief takes. Murad was complimented by the ever talented and optimist Mannan Amin, who has a Masters in Management Science with a specialization in Innovations, Viral Marketing, and Entrepreneurship from Stanford.  Earlier Mannan was at LUMS where he did his BSc CS and a year of MBA. Both these gentlemen teach as well. Their students are surely the lucky ones to have in their adjunct faculty such passionate leaders and technologists.

Currently working under the name of Tintash, these fellows have grown their company to 20+ employees within just 2 years of its proper operations. Tintash now operates on 2 floors of Shadman House while earlier it was using only one floor. Apart from that, the best part is their collaboration/relationships with established and emerging game development companies around as well as innovative work strategies.

Those of us who have played Fishing Frenzy by downloading it from iPhone App Store should feel proud that such work has been done in Pakistan and that our game development industry has taken first few steps to enter the global market.

It is certainly not easy to group a wonderful team of concept developers, graphics designers & software developers and then tone their skills as per your requirement especially when you are the first entrant. For standing out there in problems, believing in themselves while establishing a new industry, and growing an organization to such a level, Mannan and Murad are our entrepreneurs of the month.