OPEN Karachi held its 3rd Entrepreneurship Conference (eCON’14) at Institute of Business Management on December 20th, 2014. The annual conference is the flagship event of OPEN Karachi that aims on bringing together aspiring entrepreneurs and providing them networking opportunities for a chance to grow further to build an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem for Pakistan. The conference provided an opportunity to young entrepreneurs to seek guidance from industry champions, thought leaders and successful entrepreneurs. The theme of the conference for this year was, “Economic Sustainability Through Entrepreneurship”. The Chief Guest of the conference was Mr. S M Munir, Chief Executive of Trade Development Authority of Pakistan. The speakers’ panel included notable names:
• Mr. John A. Tucknott – MBE, British Deputy High Commissioner to Pakistan and Director of Trade & Investment
• Tommy Hutchison – Founder & CEO of i-genious UK
• Sunita Singh – Sr. Director Wadhwani Foundation, Co-founder NEN
• Mr. Shahid Mahmud – Chief Executive Officer, Interactive Group
• Sadaf Mehmood – Enterprise Development Strategist, SEED Ventures
• Amy Scarra – CoFounder and COO, Think Global
• Imran Moinuddin – CEO, NexDegree Pvt. Ltd.
• Ambareem Khan – CEO, Empyrean
• Ahmed Jalal – Managing Director, Abraaj Group
• Nabeel Qadir – Joint Director, Entrepreneurship & Enterprise Development at Punjab Information Technology Board
• Mushtaq Chhapra – Chairman & Director, The Citizens Foundation
The talks of the conference revolved around the themes of:
• Role of Academia in Promoting Entrepreneurs
• Entrepreneurship In the Textile Industry of Pakistan
• Women Entrepreneurship
• Social Entrepreneurship
• Technopreneurship