Building the Innovation Economy

When LMKT reached out to me to lead to the National Incubation Center in Karachi, I was skeptical.

It’s funded by the government. It will be managed by a consortium of large private sector entities. It will be housed in a public sector university. I’ll be answerable to a board AND to Ignite, our funding organisation. And with all this at my back, I’m supposed to build the innovation economy?

So I looked up LMKT and LMKR. I looked up National Incubation Centres in Lahore (LUMS) and Islamabad (Mobilink). I asked around about Ignite. I researched NED University where NIC was going to be housed.

Everyone involved seemed genuine. With all the possible pitfalls, it was too good an opportunity to pass. The parallels to Silicon Valley were obvious: Stanford University was getting funding for research from various government agencies, they built the Stanford Research Park to commercialise this research, and so started what became Silicon Valley with its trillions of dollars of wealth creation and companies like Apple and Google and Facebook.

Karachi is Pakistan’s largest city and commercial hub. It has its challenges, but it is home to probably the greatest number of young people in a city. Karachi needs not just an incubator, but tens of technology community hubs where young people can come together and discover opportunities. Opportunity is the spiritual equivalent of hope, and hope is the driver of progress and growth.

The 20,000 square feet of NIC Karachi is not extravagant – but one small step in the right direction. To truly serve Karachi’s youth, we need to think in terms of millions of square feet of space – available at a low-cost, in all parts of the city where young people can freelance for global clients, start small service companies or build innovative startups.

Unfortunately, the very people who should be making this demand start asking: what is an incubator good for? What is the success ratio of startups that go to an incubator? Why are startups with not much to show hyped up so much? Why do so many startups fail?

If we want to make Karachi the Innovation Capital of South Asia, with millions of young people involved in the innovation economy, serving global clients, building products, solving national problems with technology – we have to dream with a generous heart. We have to think big. We have to plan for greatness. And we have to work together.

We need 100 sq ft of space per person. If we want 1 million people to be involved in the global innovation economy, we need 100 million sq ft of space.

20000 is 0.02% of that total.

Now some of you will question, why do we need space? Can’t people work out of their homes? All they need is a computer and an internet connection.

So while Karachi has millions of young people, we lack skilled talent. Our educational institutions don’t have the physical capacity to train 1 million young people in the next 5 years to be globally competitive. Our challenge isn’t opportunity (the internet has opened up the world for us), our challenge is lack of skilled talent.

Technology hubs that provide low-cost space to young people will become centres of both innovation and learning. The world that we live in demands that we not only learn but also unlearn and learn new things on an ongoing basis. At NIC Karachi, we have hosted over 50 events in the first 150 days. We’re an accelerator, but we’re rapidly becoming a community hub for young techies.

Without public funding and support, we cannot accelerate the process of becoming globally competitive – not for Karachi, not for Pakistan.

But why should the government invest and enable this innovation ecosystem? A freelancer averages $18,000 per year of income. With a million people engaged in the global economy, Karachi will export $18 billion dollars of digital services. And the return on innovative products will be exponential – a single company building an AI-based water management device for agriculture could be worth billions of dollars.

The youth of Karachi are willing and able to compete with the world. Like the Chinese, the French, the United States and many other countries in the world – the government of Pakistan, the government of Sindh and the government of Karachi should step up their game and give hope and opportunity and a clear message to young innovators: You don’t have to immigrate to discover your true potential. Karachi is your home and we will support you with the full energy and resources of the government. Innovate, build new things and challenge the world. You are our future.