PESHAWAR: The Enlight Lab, a not-for-profit organisation, in partnership with National Incubation Centre (NIC), Peshawar, and S&P Global arranged a successful online event here on Tuesday to drive innovative tech ideas to overcome massive devastation caused by flash floods.

The event gathered young innovators, tech experts, and social entrepreneurs to put forth technology and data-driven approaches to tackle Pakistan’s persistent flood issue.

Floods have exposed critical gaps in preparedness and early warning system, coordinated response and post-flood recovery planning.

The participants said Pakistan experienced devastating floods causing taking heavy toll on human lives, and infrastructure, causing far-reaching economic losses.

Event explores innovative disaster management outcomes

“It is critical to utilise the available resources and innovative initiatives to encourage data-driven, technology-enabled and community-focused solutions that could help us reduce flood risks and improve disaster management outcomes,” an organiser of the event said.

Around 17 teams participated in the event and pitched ideas centered on three core areas, including readiness (early warning and foreseeing), response (emergency, coordination) recovery (post-disaster resilience and rebuilding).

The organisers picked up three teams for offering their practical, innovative and result-driven ideas.

Following a tough competition, the first position was secured by humanitarian volunteer mapping idea, a solution based on open street maps. It received Rs50,000. The idea focused on rapidly creating validated, open source datasets of roads, structures, and waterways through post-flood ‘mapathons’, enabling humanitarian organisations to quickly identify affected areas and plan timely interventions.

The second position went to an AI-powered flood alert system idea, with cash award of Rs25,000. It converts complex flood data into simple, actionable alerts in local dialects helping communities to be well-informed so that they could timely get evacuated.

The third position with cash prize Rs25, 000 was given to flood prediction and emergency response system idea, designed to support early forecasting and coordinated emergency response.

Shafeeq Gigyani, progamme manager NIC, said every year flash floods hit Pakistan, but unfortunately people and relevant authorities tended to forget about them afterwards. “Our organisation is determined to break that cycle through high-tech innovative and practical initiatives well before the disaster hits us.”

“Through such initiatives, our main objective is to drive solutions that focus on readiness, timely response and long-term recovery,” he said.

Usman Nazir, director at S&P Global, said his organisation felt proud to support initiatives using data and innovation for social impact at a large-scale.

Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2025