Exposure Visit 2: NIC Islamabad

An exposure trip of students of Rawalpindi Women University was arranged to National Incubation Center Islamabad by Shaoor foundation for Education and Awareness under project FCTEW.The students were welcomed by Mr. Ibraheem Ahmed, Senior Consultant at Teamup and Trainings Manager at NIC Islamabad, who began the session by asking the participants what they had learned in the three days of the training. He then proceeded to give an orientation of the NIC mission and objectives, followed by sharing success stories of entrepreneurs, and the role of NIC in starting new businesses. He also highlighted the facilities offered by the NIC such as creative coworker space, mentorship and coaching, free access to Amazon and Microsoft, in-house day care center and nanny to take care of the children of women working here, HR, finance, digital media and company registration services. Furthermore, he shed light on building and empowering communities and access to investments and grants.

Ms. Wardah Iftikhar (Program Manager at SFEA) then further added on how they can develop ideas into businesses and guided them throughout their discussions in the group activity. The students were then divided into six groups, and were asked to design a business model based on six themes of Women Empowerment, critical thinking and gender discrimination. These models were then presented one by one.

The administration at Rawalpindi Women University expressed their appreciation for the SFEA team and expressed their eagerness to continue working with SFEA for their upcoming events.