Pakistani startup led by Nust graduate wins award at Silicon Valley summit
Pakistani startup RLabs has won the best startup award at the Silicon Valley November Summit in California, with the government on Saturday hailing the achievement as showcasing the “growing strength of our startup ecosystem”.
RLabs, a Pakistani startup incubated at the National Incubation Centre for Aerospace Technologies (Nicat) and led by Harris Ahmed, won the ‘GOAL Startup Award’ at the summit. The event, held from Nov 2 to Nov 5, was organised by Plug and Play, an innovation platform and a venture capital firm.
RLabs was among 18 startups from around the world that “earned the incredible opportunity to pitch their idea” at the summit under Plug and Play’s Global Overseas Acceleration & Learning (GOAL) programme.
“Had the opportunity to present our work on XR (extended reality) simulators, synthetic data and machine training on a platform that brought together more than 3,000 attendees, including founders, venture capitalists, corporate executives, innovation leaders, and government partners,” Ahmed wrote on his LinkedIn account, sharing a photo of him posing with the award.
Ahmed, a 2018 graduate of the National University of Sciences and Technology (Nust) as per his profile, said he “spent the last decade teaching humans how to operate complex machines in XR”.
“Now we use the same human experience to train machine instincts. (Launching in the US soon),” he added.
Ahmed noted that the summit centred on artificial intelligence (AI) and deep tech, featuring live demonstrations and pitches from over 300 startups across more than 20 industry programmes.
According to Nicat, RLabs had been training a proprietary Large Language Model to “power a modular, cross-platform simulation engine that cuts development time by 75 per cent”.
In a statement, also posted by the government’s official X account, IT Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja wrote: “From Pakistan to Silicon Valley — a proud moment for our nation!”
She termed the achievement a “moment of immense pride” for her ministry and tech innovation arm Ignite, reflecting the “extraordinary potential of Pakistani talent and the growing strength of our startup ecosystem”.
“Seeing our homegrown startups earn international recognition reinforces our commitment to nurturing innovation, creating global opportunities, and empowering the next generation of Pakistani entrepreneurs,” the minister said.
She reaffirmed the government’s vision: “Pakistani startups should not just compete globally, but help shape the future of technology.”
“Congratulations to Harris Ahmed and the entire RLabs team for making Pakistan proud. May this be one of many more success stories that take our green flag to new heights!” the statement added.
On Oct 10, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif formally inaugurated the newly renamed Daanish IT Park (National Technology Park), hailing the country’s first national technology facility as a crucial milestone for Pakistan’s rapid economic progress and prosperity.
He noted that the state-of-the-art facility brings incubation centres, innovation hubs, small and medium enterprises, startups, and industry leaders together under one roof.
The World Bank — under the “Pakistan Entrepreneurship and Private Investment Catalyst Project” expected to be approved by its executive board in early 2027 — would help the government establish and capitalise a $50 million Fund of Funds (FoF) to catalyse Pakistan’s nascent innovation and venture capital ecosystem.
Earlier this year, co-founders of Singapore-based Plouton AI secured a spot in the ‘finance and venture capital’ category of the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list. The venture, co-founded by Muhammad Furqan Karim Kidwai and Sarfraz Shahid Hussain, was described as an “agentic automation platform that helps midmarket companies automate finance workflows”.
