Pakistan at the moment needs real walk persons instead of real talk ones. Don’t get carried away when gurus advise you that you don’t have a business model or a proper plan, and that there are giants against whom you can’t survive. Just believe in yourself and your idea or product. If its really good, you can eventually make 100 business models out of it. Give it your 110% and Insha’Allah you’ll succeed. If you fail, try again. One day you will.

Don’t wait. Somebody else might have the same idea. Go and grab the opportunity NOW. Even if you’ll let it go due to failure someday, at least you won’t regret that you never tried.

The first question that came to our mind was “What is the immediate need of the victims that we have to address?”  The obvious answer was food and water. There is water everywhere but none safe to drink. Outbreaks of cholera are common in large floods and arranging safe drinking water to many millions of people is of extreme importance. Hence we decided to look out for water solutions as it is not possible to deliver mineral water everywhere.

Last year I saw the following  talk amongst the TEDGlobal 2009 videos where Engineer Michael Pritchard introduced his revolutionary product “Life Saver Bottle”.

I was still wondering that how can we use the same idea here that we received an email from Mr. Azhar Mateen who told us about a similar system that they have developed in Pakistan. Instead of bottle, it is more of a manual filtration plant. The plant is capable to treat the flood water directly and its capacity is more than 1000 liters per hour. Since electricity is not available in the affected areas, the system is capable to run without electricity. He further told us that they are donating 10 plants  for free and can provide us similar system on no profit no loss basis for only PKR 250,000 whereas such a system would cost much more if we’ll try to import it. The company behind the project is Tauseef Water owned by Mr.Tauseef Anjum of Tauseef Enterprises Ltd.

The following video is the live demo of the working system.

[powerpress url]

Moreover, a friend emailed me the following poster which showed steps of making a good sand water filter. Additional details about this can be downloaded from here.

I somewhat felt really happy that people are coming up with amazing ideas to help out their fellow countrymen. Burt Rutan once said that “Innovation occurs in periods of adversity”. I would request all readers to step up and come out with such innovative solutions & initiatives that can be used to help our brothers and sisters. Since we have to rebuild these areas, smart relief efforts and superior infrastructural & residential planning is the need of the hour.

In the waters of the devastation hitting Pakistan lies a chance to reinvent our condition by washing away the regrets of the last 63 years and laying the foundations of a new temple. But only if we have the courage and vision to think on these lines.

Recently, one of my friends told me about the Power of Ideas organized every year in India. The promotional video (below) just blew me away and refreshed memories of initial struggling time I had while starting my first venture.

The Power of Ideas is the intellectual property of The Economic Times, India’s leading financial daily. In a unique three-way public-private-academic partnership, The Economic Times has joined hands with the Department of Science and Technology (Government of India) and the Indian Institute of Ahmedabad’s CIIE (Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship) to create a formidable force that can champion the cause of entrepreneurial culture in India. It leverages on the Government’s remit to encourage innovation and IIM-A’s demonstrated experience in mentoring and incubating start-ups.

The Power of Ideas encourages anyone and everyone with an idea to realize his entrepreneurial dream. Ideas will be polished and nurtured with personalized guidance from mentors and then incubated at IIM Ahmedabad, before being presented to the largest gathering of investors, besides some receiving an assured seed funding, courtesy the Department of Science of Technology, Government of India.

If you fall into the category below, you are eligible to participate.

•    Must be an Indian Citizen of 18 years or over currently residing in India.
•    Dreamers: Anyone who has ever cherished the idea of starting out on his own.
•    Entrepreneurs: Anyone who has just begun work on an idea even while he may be pursuing another day-time occupation.
•    Start-ups: Business enterprises headquartered in India; a standalone, not a subsidiary or division of a larger company.
•    Students: Pursuing their graduation or post graduation course in any stream
•    Corporate executives with a viable idea and keen to put their market experience to test

Though P@SHA, TiE Lahore, IEEE Lahore GOLD, Saif Center, Mr. Zia Imran, Dr. Zahir, Mr. Naeem Zafar and other many Pakistani Entrepreneurs have been encouraging, mentoring & supporting the young generation in Pakistan for quite some time, its the need of the hour that such initiatives are supported at Government and Academia Level. It’s good to see business institutes organizing Entrepreneurial Summits & Business Idea Competitions here in Pakistan but incubation is an altogether different process, giving more time for discussion in a different environment. In short, we need more of DOING at the moment rather than just presentation of an idea which most of the audience even forgets by the end of such events. Yes, you got me right. We need setups like Y Combinator here.

Telenor Pakistan has already taken a step in the right direction but we need more powerful stakeholders to join hands for a bigger movement. Also I would request management & business institutes in Pakistan to open up Incubation and Entrepreneurship Centers, introduce related degree programs and provide the opportunity to young minds for proper mentoring. This would in long term benefit our country’s economy.

Adding to it, it’s not about us writing for our favorites. We welcome other fellow entrepreneurs, mentors, professionals and organizations who wish to be part of the community to get in touch with us and we’ll issue them personal or company accounts to log in their stuff.