Inaugural ESO Industry Incubation Roundtable 2026
The Entrepreneurship Support Organization-ESO Council recently convened the Inaugural ESO Industry Incubation Roundtable at the National Incubation Center (NIC) Karachi uniting serial entrepreneurs, seasoned industry leaders, ESO experts, and academia for a focused dialogue on startup resource mobilization.
Led and chaired by Mr. Raza Abbas, Chairperson, ESO Council, Head of Incubation at Institute of Business Management-IoBM co-moderated with Engr. Parkash Lohana, Director ORIC at Mohmmad Ali Jinnah University- MAJU.
Special gratitude to serial entrepreneurs, senior industry leaders and global representatives of international organizations contributed to the roundtable: Mr. Azhar Rizvi, Mr. Junaid Naqi, Mr. Asad Abdulla, Mr. Asif Shaikh, Mr. Asif Riaz, Mr. Imran Azeem, Ms. Amina Ahmed, Ms. Palwashay Arbab, Mr. Fawad Safdar Khan, ESO Leaders representing impactful incubation centers and ORIC department for valuable insights that will directly shape how we support Pakistan’s next generation of founders.
The dialogue centered on key guiding questions:
- How can industry better support startups through mentorship, procurement, and market access?
- How can Pakistani founders connect with global value chains?
- How do we deepen the bridge between universities and industry?
Key takeaways from the inaugural round-table:
🔹 A “local problem-first” approach to entrepreneurship — solving real community challenges in traceability, food systems, disaster management etc.
🔹 Assigning dedicated domain experts to every incubated startup, from pitch validation through milestone reviews.
🔹 Learning from the best practice of Wafi Tameer Flagship Entrepreneur Annual Awards, more industry sponsored Entrepreneurship Awards are the need of the hour for youth innovation and empowerment.
Industry sponsored Hackathons solving industry problems are encouraged to come forward and contribute to the evolving start-up ecosystem.
🔹 Co-locating startups within business chambers to unlock direct industry connections
🔹 Exploring social entrepreneurship as grant funding tightens
As a way forward from this ESO round-table a white paper is being developed which will be shared with Ignite and UNESCO.
This is what the ESO Council is here for: creating the room where industry and entrepreneurship actually meet.
