you
six truths about being a tech
entrepreneur in Pakistan so about five
years ago I started my company called
switch which is a mobile solutions
company and it was a function of both
necessity as well as stubbornness
necessity because I was having a really
difficult time finding work and I say
stubbornness because I was obsessed with
this product idea that had already been
tried tested failed and shelved
so for months and many many job
rejections later I decided to brave up
and work on this idea of mine switch was
born out of my parents dining room in
the winter of 2012 and we launched our
first SMS based employment portal in the
summer after the idea was simple to not
only connect job seekers to employers
through SMS using mobile technology but
to also give them enough information so
that they could negotiate a fair salary
know what the market Worth was and
wanted to train them for a job interview
the service little did we expect became
an instant hit we launched it in
partnership with the telecom network and
within the first year we had over 1
million Pakistanis using and
recommending the service to difference I
I had gotten a taste of the mobile
revolution and I was hooked now when I
look back I think all those hiring
managers made the right decision of not
hiring me but for a very wrong reason I
say wrong because they mistook the
enthusiasm and too much extent courage
of a young girl as arrogance and
glossiness and this is something that my
headhunter at the time the gentleman who
was there helping me look for employment
told me the Daniel you’ve come across is
too arrogant they think that you will
not make a good team player and I say
they made the right decision because if
they had hired me I would still probably
would have been working for them when
somebody else was busy working on my
dream so thank you thank you to all
those HR managers out there who believed
in my stubborn obstinate ways before I
did this brings me to my first learning
navigating the Pakistani tech space that
a lot of us will enter into this space
are a function of necessity and a lot of
us who stick around are a function of
our title who cares if you’re Daniel or
Daniel so when I was first approached
for this talk and I was being storming
topics one theme that kept popping up
was my challenges in this industry as a
woman my learnings as a woman in this
industry specifically with regard to
sexism and discrimination frankly
speaking the feminists in me would have
loved to talk about it if only I had
much to talk about either I’ve been
super lucky or my experience has not
been unique in any way that I haven’t
really faced instances of outright
bigotry from within the industry twaddle
I’m sure there have been a few instances
but I feel like a lot of them were
rooted in my inexperience I came into an
industry that I knew very little about I
did not have a mentor
I had to hit the ground running so all
my learnings were learnings that I did
not run and I feel like a lot of the
discrimination if you want to say was
because of my inexperience and anything
else
friendly speaking I feel like my
enunciation into this text space has not
been any different from Madani odd or ‘
in fact I tell you something funny even
now like 50 times 50 percent of the
times when I’m entering a meeting people
are expecting to see a Daniel
yeah but rarely by the end of it it
really doesn’t matter sometimes I close
a deal sometimes I don’t but hardly ever
do I feel that I’m being discriminated
against because of my gender or because
of my faith if you ask me exactly why
that is I would probably not be able to
give you a definitive answer
and it’s actually baffling that in a
country like Pakistan where patriarchy
is etched in stone you have the IT
sector which is so different and that is
something that single-handedly makes it
the best thing about this industry it’s
exclusively inclusive services to
products the path leads travel something
that is very dear to my heart do you
know that for the past five years
Pakistan has been consecutively ranked
as one of the least innovative countries
in the world
113 out of 127 countries this year
according to the global innovation index
embarrassing right you want to know
something more disturbing
guess how much of our GDP do we actually
spend upon research and development take
a while yes
I wish it were 7% things would have been
a lot better we spend less than point
three percent on research and
development so it whereas you know the
developed countries of anywhere between
two to four percent so it doesn’t come
as a surprise to me that Pakistan’s IT
industry is still predominantly a
services industry we are known for our
BPOs we are known for our call centers
we are known for achieve development
costs and we are known for our clone
startups and please don’t get me wrong
here I’m not saying that being a service
industry is necessarily a bad thing what
I’m trying to say here is that if
Pakistan wants to make an impact on the
global tech space we have to invest in
R&D we have to come up with our own
original products we have to come up
with the next Facebook or we have to
come up with the next Instagram or if
you ask me we have to come up with the
next SpaceX
and some of us are actually like working
towards it like for instance what one is
doing is groundbreaking it’s really good
but I feel like we need a lot more
response we need a lot more dreamers and
we need a lot more crazies the spotlight
wrap some of my friends are not really
going to be happy with this one so I
feel like the startup and incubator
accelerator culture in this country has
given birth to something very
interesting a breed of entrepreneurs who
thrive in the spotlight but
unfortunately that’s the only place they
thrive in getting a startup to succeed
is an extremely difficult task but if
you’re constantly being thrown in the
limelight for your idea it becomes
impossible and what’s worse is that most
of us don’t realize how big of a
double-edged sword this is till the time
it’s too late you’re stuck you’re spot
that spotlight is there because of your
business because of its longevity
because of
success and it’s not going to succeed if
you are hopping from one conference to
another to another or networking from
one dinner to another to another to
another eight money can be the death of
you um again I feel like I’m stepping on
a lot of toes here with this one so
Pakistan is the biggest recipient of
UKaid and the third largest recipient of
US aid in the world roughly in 2015 we
got about one to one point two billion
dollars coming into the country
both these aid programs have multiple
grant and partnership opportunities for
innovative solutions that fit their
goals and that is precisely where the
problem lies their goals not necessarily
us so until you are a company whose
entire business model revolves around
and the aid industry it makes sense
otherwise I would say it’s a
double-edged sword again
if you you know if you start chasing
eight money because unlike an investor
who has a direct stake in the longevity
and scalability of your business
the most eight programs work on very
strict KPIs for a limited period of time
and after that time is over their
commitment to your business might be
minimal you are uniquely placed to drive
a car tonight if so I was recently
selected to represent Pakistan in the
fortune 500 most powerful women’s
program and while I was there
interacting with all these powerful
women from all over the world I realized
that I wasn’t there because I had done
something uniquely different or
something that was mind-blowing I was
there because I was an oddity an oddity
from Pakistan there was a woman talking
about startups and technology and not so
much about child marriages and honor
killings
if challenged many preconceived notions
some were willing to share them while
others were existent but all were
interested in my story and the story of
many others like me who are not building
bombs or who are not killing in the name
of honor but are working on Twitter
currency or are leveraging technology to
connect doctors to patients I think it’s
high time we start changing the global
narrative about Pakistan and I strongly
feel that the tech industry can play a
pivotal role I do what I do because I am
in this country I’m not sure where my
story would have been same anywhere else
so next time if you’re having a moment
of self-doubt or somebody says that
you’re too stubborn or too obstinate to
make it remember this the nitrogen in
your DNA the calcium in your teeth the
iron in your blood the carbon in your
apple pies were all made in the
interiors of collapsing stars you are
made of starstuff thank you very much
[Applause]
six truths about being a tech
entrepreneur in Pakistan so about five
years ago I started my company called
switch which is a mobile solutions
company and it was a function of both
necessity as well as stubbornness
necessity because I was having a really
difficult time finding work and I say
stubbornness because I was obsessed with
this product idea that had already been
tried tested failed and shelved
so for months and many many job
rejections later I decided to brave up
and work on this idea of mine switch was
born out of my parents dining room in
the winter of 2012 and we launched our
first SMS based employment portal in the
summer after the idea was simple to not
only connect job seekers to employers
through SMS using mobile technology but
to also give them enough information so
that they could negotiate a fair salary
know what the market Worth was and
wanted to train them for a job interview
the service little did we expect became
an instant hit we launched it in
partnership with the telecom network and
within the first year we had over 1
million Pakistanis using and
recommending the service to difference I
I had gotten a taste of the mobile
revolution and I was hooked now when I
look back I think all those hiring
managers made the right decision of not
hiring me but for a very wrong reason I
say wrong because they mistook the
enthusiasm and too much extent courage
of a young girl as arrogance and
glossiness and this is something that my
headhunter at the time the gentleman who
was there helping me look for employment
told me the Daniel you’ve come across is
too arrogant they think that you will
not make a good team player and I say
they made the right decision because if
they had hired me I would still probably
would have been working for them when
somebody else was busy working on my
dream so thank you thank you to all
those HR managers out there who believed
in my stubborn obstinate ways before I
did this brings me to my first learning
navigating the Pakistani tech space that
a lot of us will enter into this space
are a function of necessity and a lot of
us who stick around are a function of
our title who cares if you’re Daniel or
Daniel so when I was first approached
for this talk and I was being storming
topics one theme that kept popping up
was my challenges in this industry as a
woman my learnings as a woman in this
industry specifically with regard to
sexism and discrimination frankly
speaking the feminists in me would have
loved to talk about it if only I had
much to talk about either I’ve been
super lucky or my experience has not
been unique in any way that I haven’t
really faced instances of outright
bigotry from within the industry twaddle
I’m sure there have been a few instances
but I feel like a lot of them were
rooted in my inexperience I came into an
industry that I knew very little about I
did not have a mentor
I had to hit the ground running so all
my learnings were learnings that I did
not run and I feel like a lot of the
discrimination if you want to say was
because of my inexperience and anything
else
friendly speaking I feel like my
enunciation into this text space has not
been any different from Madani odd or ‘
in fact I tell you something funny even
now like 50 times 50 percent of the
times when I’m entering a meeting people
are expecting to see a Daniel
yeah but rarely by the end of it it
really doesn’t matter sometimes I close
a deal sometimes I don’t but hardly ever
do I feel that I’m being discriminated
against because of my gender or because
of my faith if you ask me exactly why
that is I would probably not be able to
give you a definitive answer
and it’s actually baffling that in a
country like Pakistan where patriarchy
is etched in stone you have the IT
sector which is so different and that is
something that single-handedly makes it
the best thing about this industry it’s
exclusively inclusive services to
products the path leads travel something
that is very dear to my heart do you
know that for the past five years
Pakistan has been consecutively ranked
as one of the least innovative countries
in the world
113 out of 127 countries this year
according to the global innovation index
embarrassing right you want to know
something more disturbing
guess how much of our GDP do we actually
spend upon research and development take
a while yes
I wish it were 7% things would have been
a lot better we spend less than point
three percent on research and
development so it whereas you know the
developed countries of anywhere between
two to four percent so it doesn’t come
as a surprise to me that Pakistan’s IT
industry is still predominantly a
services industry we are known for our
BPOs we are known for our call centers
we are known for achieve development
costs and we are known for our clone
startups and please don’t get me wrong
here I’m not saying that being a service
industry is necessarily a bad thing what
I’m trying to say here is that if
Pakistan wants to make an impact on the
global tech space we have to invest in
R&D we have to come up with our own
original products we have to come up
with the next Facebook or we have to
come up with the next Instagram or if
you ask me we have to come up with the
next SpaceX
and some of us are actually like working
towards it like for instance what one is
doing is groundbreaking it’s really good
but I feel like we need a lot more
response we need a lot more dreamers and
we need a lot more crazies the spotlight
wrap some of my friends are not really
going to be happy with this one so I
feel like the startup and incubator
accelerator culture in this country has
given birth to something very
interesting a breed of entrepreneurs who
thrive in the spotlight but
unfortunately that’s the only place they
thrive in getting a startup to succeed
is an extremely difficult task but if
you’re constantly being thrown in the
limelight for your idea it becomes
impossible and what’s worse is that most
of us don’t realize how big of a
double-edged sword this is till the time
it’s too late you’re stuck you’re spot
that spotlight is there because of your
business because of its longevity
because of
success and it’s not going to succeed if
you are hopping from one conference to
another to another or networking from
one dinner to another to another to
another eight money can be the death of
you um again I feel like I’m stepping on
a lot of toes here with this one so
Pakistan is the biggest recipient of
UKaid and the third largest recipient of
US aid in the world roughly in 2015 we
got about one to one point two billion
dollars coming into the country
both these aid programs have multiple
grant and partnership opportunities for
innovative solutions that fit their
goals and that is precisely where the
problem lies their goals not necessarily
us so until you are a company whose
entire business model revolves around
and the aid industry it makes sense
otherwise I would say it’s a
double-edged sword again
if you you know if you start chasing
eight money because unlike an investor
who has a direct stake in the longevity
and scalability of your business
the most eight programs work on very
strict KPIs for a limited period of time
and after that time is over their
commitment to your business might be
minimal you are uniquely placed to drive
a car tonight if so I was recently
selected to represent Pakistan in the
fortune 500 most powerful women’s
program and while I was there
interacting with all these powerful
women from all over the world I realized
that I wasn’t there because I had done
something uniquely different or
something that was mind-blowing I was
there because I was an oddity an oddity
from Pakistan there was a woman talking
about startups and technology and not so
much about child marriages and honor
killings
if challenged many preconceived notions
some were willing to share them while
others were existent but all were
interested in my story and the story of
many others like me who are not building
bombs or who are not killing in the name
of honor but are working on Twitter
currency or are leveraging technology to
connect doctors to patients I think it’s
high time we start changing the global
narrative about Pakistan and I strongly
feel that the tech industry can play a
pivotal role I do what I do because I am
in this country I’m not sure where my
story would have been same anywhere else
so next time if you’re having a moment
of self-doubt or somebody says that
you’re too stubborn or too obstinate to
make it remember this the nitrogen in
your DNA the calcium in your teeth the
iron in your blood the carbon in your
apple pies were all made in the
interiors of collapsing stars you are
made of starstuff thank you very much
[Applause]
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