TORONTO: In the trendiest part of downtown Toronto, hundreds of young entrepreneurs are to gather over a weekend in November to find solutions to Pakistan’s development challenges. They will be there to engage "the world to reshape Pakistan."
"Pakathon" is in its third year now in Canada and this year is being hosted by Ali Kazmi. The global final is on November 8 at the Agha Khan Museum.
Pakathon brings together geniuses with a wide variety of skill sets involved in business, medical, technology, energy, marketing and other fields, over the course of a weekend and challenges the participants to come up with sustainable business models that will have a direct social impact in Pakistan.
The most promising ideas get up to $10,000 in funding as well as access to over 80 mentors who will help the team in executing successfully.
Pakathon has grown tremendously from a mere concept three years ago, to 15 city chapters and four continents. It is the only organisation in the world that offers hackathons at such scale.
Companies such as Procheck - a medicine validation service in Pakistan that is tackling the rampant problem of fake pharmaceuticals has been funded by Pakathon. Pakathon helped the Canadian founder kickstart his business and now he has grown to five employees and secured additional funding of $60,000 from Malaysia.
Last year, the Pakathon ran from September 26 to 28. Individual entrepreneurs presented their ideas on Friday night and invited others to join their teams. In 60 seconds or less, each entrepreneur presented the ‘big’ idea to the audience.
Teams were formed late Friday evening. Starting Saturday morning, they were busy researching and developing concepts, prototypes, and business plans. By Sunday afternoon, they were ready to present their plans to a panel of judges.
A movement that started in Boston reached Toronto and several other cities, bringing together hundreds of youth and their mentors to brainstorm solutions for Pakistan’s development challenges over a short period and then present their solutions to a panel of judges who would rank projects based on their utility and ease of implementation.
Read: Pakathon: Hacking into progress for Pakistan