NEST i/o holds Weekend Women 2.0, shortlists 3 out of 39 startups

KARACHI: The 54 hours-long startup weekend ended with 11 startups, having women leaders, competing head to head for the top three spots. The prize is a promise to fast-track applications for the next incubation program of Nest i/o, expected to be held at the end of 2018.

The three winners of this startup weekend will also have an opportunity to travel to Bali to attend a demo day in October. They will not only be able to showcase their ideas and initiatives to a global audience, but also land funding and investors. The event is held on the format of, and in cooperation with, Techstars – an American seed accelerator.

39 startups applied for the event, following the format of Techstars, voted among themselves, leading eleven to qualify for a chance to appear before the judges. Each team received three votes to select among the 39 startups, out of which the top-voted startups were then selected for stage 2.

Over a period of three days, these 11 startups met industry leaders, and got advice from mentors on pitching, surviving the business, and overcoming of challenges driven from those mentors’ own experiences.

The winning teams were selected by a panel of judges including Rabia Gharib, Co-founder of The New Spaces and with an IT industry expert, Sadaf Mehmood, Partner and Enterprise Development Strategist SEED Ventures, Shahdia Saleem, Managing Trustee of PEP Foundation, along with Jehan Ara, the heart behind P@SHA and The Nest i/o.

The unanimous decision of these judges landed “BehenChara” startup at the top spot. This startup aims to alleviate the troubles of rural women of the country, who do not have access to, and information about women hygiene products. The six-member team, constituting of marketing, production, and health experts plan to start educating women not only on health issues but also to allow them to produce their sanitary pads from cloths, cheaply and easily. Speaking to Geo.tv, the startup members said that they plan to start their first pilot project from Mubarak village, situated merely half an hour away from the city.

The first runner-up of the event was “Connect Here”, a startup bent on assuaging the pain of the elderly and the members of society who either don’t have the means or the access to leisurely activities, and social interactions. The second runner-up of the Weekend Women 2.0 was My Scooty, a startup that wishes to make scooty available to women as an alternative to cars and other modes of travelling. Keeping in view the risks of travelling on a bike, these aspirants also plan to provide protective gear like pepper spray to their female customers as well.

Other ideas that came to light during the event were arsenic filtration from water, a startup to train and help women online (who have left the workforce) so they can return to their jobs, making all home appliances ‘smart’ and remotely controllable, a working space to facilitate mothers with young children, travelling advisory that also informs of the events and happenings at travel destinations, uniforms available online to make it easier for parents, online mentorship and psychological help, and a platform for making social awareness videos tackling social misconceptions in and around the country.

Speaking to Geo.tv the organiser of this event and Nest i/o head, Jehan Ara said that she is always delighted to see women stepping forward and challenging social criticism. “When I came to Pakistan in the mid-nineties, I was told that I won’t be able to run a business here. I learnt driving and people told me that I will get lost. There were no Google Maps back then either. But I always told them that if I get lost, I’ll find a way, and that still applies today.”

The Nest i/o provides budding entrepreneurs with space, infrastructure, facilities and knowledge sessions as well as access to a network of mentors and potential investors.