If you’re someone with even an iota of interest in the startup culture, Entrepreneurial ecosystem, scope of business in Pakistan, and/or want to keep a tab on how educational institutions are contributing to the evolving economy of Pakistan, today is your big day!
i2i is releasing its new product: Ecosystem Map.
Background
Before we get to understand the map, let us first take a bird’s eye view.
Only a few months back, the launch of Pakistan Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Report 2016 took the entrepreneurial industry by storm. Invest2Innovate (i2i)’s PEER assessed the current entrepreneurship landscape in Pakistan, analyzed the opportunities available, and provided an in-depth critique of the challenges facing Pakistani entrepreneurs.
The study mapped the number of startup competitions, incubators, university programs, co-working spaces and forums, and analyzed the gaps & challenges entrepreneurs continue to face in the country. It also provided recommendations on how to improve the ecosystem in the future. In short, PEER presented a comprehensive qualitative picture of the business landscape, and thus provided in itself a useful source for everyone aspiring to learn about the enabling environment for businesses in the country.
With Ecosystem Map, i2i has come up with one of its kind, and Pakistan’s first ever, dynamic and evolving start-up ecosystem map!
In progression of defining the entrepreneurial landscape in Pakistan, Invest2Innovate, the start-up accelerator, has taken a giant leap by developing a visualized map of Pakistan’s startup space.
It is noteworthy that Ecosystem Map developed by i2i has been sponsored by Sybrid.
How Does Ecosystem Map Work?
If you’ve been using google maps, you may be familiar with the idea of “drop a pin”. This dynamic and evolving ecosystem map, developed by using the MapMe software, works with same amenity. Users can claim data points and update sections as and when any startup event happens.
All major sectors contributing to the ecosystem have been deftly marked in their separate PIN categories. There are 11 categories in total, at the moment.
Categories currently pinned in the Ecosystem map, along with their individual participants are:
Startups 56
Competitions/ Conferences/ Forums 13
Media 5
Universities 13
Incubators 13
Accelerators 4
Coworking Spaces 8
Investors 13
Foundations/ Fellowships 6
Associations/ Organizations/ Networks 13
Government (institutes involved in start-up ecosystem) 5
Each category gives the total number of participants pinned on the map in that category.
The category participants come with customize-able sorting and filter options. At the moment, filters are available for tags, distance and keywords. Each category participant can be studied individually.
This first ever, dynamic visualization provides the most candid quantitative study of the start-up ecosystem. What’s more, its evolving!
Though the platform is moderated, people can add pins for new events, spaces, incubation centres, startups, etc.
The basic purpose this resource serves is to showcase Pakistan’s growing startup ecosystem. The coverage it provides is not just in terms of quantity, but also in terms of depth of activity.
Understandably, in its initial moments of launch the Ecosystem Map has only 56+ startups listed, however, going through the scope and potential of this evolving location database of start-up ecosystem one could expect the ambitious start-up founders and incubators/accelerators to source more pins – ideally making this a live map that people can refer to over time and to get an in depth understanding of the start-up landscape.
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