More women in Pakistan are riding the wave of technological change sweeping the world. Following entrepreneurs have come up with apps which allow them to run their businesses independently.
Sidra Qasim – Markhor
Shoes, crafted from leather by hand, are being produced by Markhorin Okara and picked up all around the world since 2010. The brand is named after an endangered breed of wild goat Markhor that is natively found in northern and central mountainous regions of Pakistan and Central Asia. This remarkable export activity is the result of the hard work of two young entrepreneurs, Sidra Qasim and Waqas Ali. Over eight long years, they have successfully identified indigenous shoe-making talent, built its capacity to an international standard and found a market for its products beyond Pakistan.
Arusha Imtiaz – Edjunction
Edjunction is an education platform for parents to stay in sync with teachers at school and get instantaneous updates on their child’s progress. The COO of Edjunction, Arusha Imtiaz has partnered with several local and international organizations to take the solution to every school in Pakistan. The team has active collaborations with Microsoft, Telenor, Samsung, and various government organization to run pilots in different district schools. In Pakistan, there are 180,000 schools, out of these, 80,000 schools are private hosting about 25 million children. Edjunction is specifically targeting this segment. The product, already launched in Dubai, has an addressable market of almost 500 schools with 200,000 admitted students.
Sahr Said – Beauty Hooked
Beauty Hooked is Pakistan’s first women-funded, women-run startup, which provides a one-stop destination for females to browse salon and spa services, review prices and book appointments online. Apart from Beauty Hooked, The Girl in Pink is an online store providing basic skin care and high quality makeup products.
Rameeza Moin – Transparent Hands
Rameeza Moin is currently working in the capacity of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Transparent Hands which is a global crowd funding platform that connects poor patients directly to the donors across the world. Her responsibilities encompass smooth functioning of Transparent Hands operations by ensuring that it gains trust and credibility in the international market.
Sana Khan Niazi – Paimona
Paimona believes in the power of Pakistan’s story — it’s culture, heritage and most importantly, its people. The brand stands for creating handcrafted, ethereal and timeless furniture pieces that can lend unshakable beauty and elegance to any living space. We are the perfect blend of modern aesthetics and cultural relevance and are made to suit your artistic sensibilities.
Saba Gul – Popinjay
Popinjay is one of the early Pakistani startups that gained international traction. With their artisan accessories and bags, this startup combined luxury and ethical business, impacting the lives of many artisan women across Pakistan.
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Sihah Waris – RiseMom
Sihah has graduated from the Founder Institute (Islamabad Chapter), which is one of the world’s most prestigious entrepreneurship accelerator program having roots in Silicon Valley. Sihah was declared “The Top Founder” from among the Founder Institute Islamabad’s first batch of graduates for her new startup, RiseMom. 60 percent of the women in Pakistan, leave jobs after becoming mothers because they are worried about their infants. The rest of the 40 percent who continue to work call every 2 hours at the home or the day care center to know how their child is doing. RiseMom is an online day care monitoring system through which the mothers while working in their office can view online, at their own convenience, how their child is doing.
Sana Farooq — ELN
ELN (The e-Learning Network) provides online accredited teacher training and Educational Management courses for beginners to fully qualified teachers. They help all teachers who lack convenient, internationally recognized training in Pakistan for their own growth and development.
Wajiha Kanwal — Affordable.pk
Wajiha, along with her husband, came up with an excellent idea to start an online portal for affordable shopping. She was able to raise Rs. 10 million by featuring in the famous program “Idea Croron Ka”. The best thing about the startup is the use of escrow payment method, which ensures payments by customers after their satisfaction.
Shanza Khan & Rabab Fatima – BoloTech
BoloTech is a health startup that has developed a speech therapy tools to assist people with speech impediments. Their easy-to-use portal enables verbal interaction of individuals with speech disorders with caretakers, parents and health professionals, accessing their performance and improving their efficiency in speech. They have clinical and home-based therapy solutions to facilitate your speech and communication difficulties primarily in Urdu. They are committed to bettering and improving the quality of life for people with speech, language, and cognitive difficulties.
[box type=”note” align=”” class=”” width=””]The writer is a Karachi based freelance columnist and is a banker by profession. He could be reached on Twitter @ReluctantAhsan[/box]