This is what some of our clients say about us
Thank you to Azhar Rizvi for his efforts in bringing out an exceptional book. No doubt this book will help the nation towards promoting entrepreneurship… I hope it will, InshaAllah, help many others to strive and work hard after retirement.
When I was just a young teenager I often got upset about how there was so much injustice in the world and standing for my rights was even a bigger challenge. Azhar Rizvi pushed me to do something about it saying “you are the chosen one, God only select His dearest to take up such tasks and will help you but with a lot of tests and patience on the way.
Starting a social business in the absence of structured social financing is hard. We were grappling with scaling up and meeting with investors and donors. Through Azhar Rizvi’s guidance we were able to figure out the structures, and framework to scale up. It has helped us scale our venture with over 14 e-health centres across Pakistan.
When I was just a young teenager I often got upset about how there was so much injustice in the world and standing for my rights was even a bigger challenge. Azhar Rizvi pushed me to do something about it saying “you are the chosen one, God only select His dearest to take up such tasks and will help you but with a lot of tests and patience on the way.
I am delighted to have been part of this initiative. I am sure cent percent that this book will help young professionals and entrepreneurs set up their own entrepreneurial paths like my interaction with Azhar Rizvi helped me streamline my business further. I pray of success that book.
Azhar Rizvi evaluated us and asked us to focus on the gaming side of business. The new direction helped us to focus and develop the venture into the fastest growing game development company and has since expanded in US through Tapinator. Today both our ventures are collectively valued at US$30 million.
While I was working to set up the CED, we met with Azhar Rizvi. At the time, he was running the highly successful MITEFP-BAP competition which was proving to be a game changer for the Pakistan IT ventures who were looking for exposure to global markets. With Azhar, and Dr. Zahir and their teams, as the main architects of IBA INVENT, the competition introduced the entrepreneurial grit and experience based learning at universities. The IBA INVENT went hand in hand as part of a greater strategy where the teachers were also trained at Babson College and the Center was in development stage. I appreciate the keystone role of Azhar and his team in developing the entrepreneurship program at IBA and in Pakistan.
As part of an effort to give back to my country, I started working with various programs that Azhar launched and have mentored and coached the startups in Pakistan. In a short span of 8-9 years has developed a new entrepreneur culture in Pakistan. In 2007 there were no companies that were mature enough to pitch to OPEN –USA. Today in a short period of 10 years I see Pakistani entrepreneurs competing on all global platforms such as OPEN USA, Y Combinator, Draper University, startup grind, and GIST as well as pitching to the global VC, collaborating with US Entrepreneurs and developing joint venture organizations with US based organizations. Azhar and his teams role played an integral part in maturing the Pakistani entrepreneurial landscape. Not only did it mature the teams who participated in various programs, the programs also helped to create linkages with the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Pakistan with Pakistani diaspora and in the USA. As a result, the mutual learning and networking created something electric and exciting that the Pakistani landscape has now become.
As part of the Silicon Valley diaspora and specifically as the Chair of OPEN Silicon Valley, I have been deeply engaged with the Pakistani startups on the West Coast as well as in Pakistan since 2004. It was in 2007, that the entrepreneurial culture started taking off in Pakistan. Azhar’s team and we came together to set up the MITEFP-OPEN Business Acceleration Plan initiative which has since produced some great international level technology entrepreneurs who could compete on a global scale. The competition and the subsequent student level programs, successfully laid down the foundation for the entrepreneurial culture as it is today. In this period, I have noticed that each year the number of promising new startups and early stage growth companies that have the potential. This represents great hope for Pakistanis who set out to solving problems and creating new paradigms and subsequently found ventures to change the world.
