Speakers for this event

• Ali Zaidi

  Ali Zaidi

  Federal Minister Maritime Affairs

  Ali Zaidi is one of the famous and leading Pakistani Politician who is the current Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs, in office since 11 September 2018. He has been a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan since August 2018. His professional career includes being a successful entrepreneur and small business owner with vast experience of operating businesses in various sectors.Mr. Zaidi was Founding President of the Imran Khan Foundation US, an IRS tax-exempt 501 C-3 charity organization based in the US. He is currently a member of PTI’s Core Committee. Besides being a member of the Core Committee, also currently on the list of official Spokespersons of PTI.Furthermore, he served as International Coordinator from 2004 until 2008 and organized PTI chapters around the globe

  Federal Minister Maritime Affairs

• Ashar Aziz

  Ashar Aziz

  CEO | Founding CEO of SkyElectric

  "Ashar Aziz is the Founder, Executive Chairman of SkyElectric Inc. He is also the creator of the core energy intelligence and management technologies embedded in the SkyElectric Smart Energy System. In 2018, Mr. Aziz received the most prestigious National award, Sitara-e-Imtiaz for his services in IT Industry. Previously, Ashar founded FireEye, Inc., (NASDAQ:FEYE), a global cyber-security company, in 2004. He served as the CEO of FireEye from 2004 until November 2012 and also served as its Board Vice Chairman, CFO and CTO. Prior to FireEye, Ashar founded Terraspring, Inc., which was acquired by Sun Microsystems, Inc., in November 2002. Following the acquisition, he and served as Chief Technology Officer of the Sun N1 program until October 2003. Ashar graduated from MIT with a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Mr. Aziz later received the University of California Regents fellowship at the University of California at Berkeley where he completed his MS in Electrical Engineering Computer Science."

  CEO | Founding CEO of SkyElectric

• Asma Khalil

  Asma Khalil

  Country Director Careem

  Asma Khalil is one of the few leaders in the country having the experience of working in several key industries of the digital ecosystem. Asma currently a country Director at Careem, is the former COO of Daraz, a start up mentor at the NIC, an e-commerce consultant, and has held several key roles in big corporations like Telenor, Jazz and Nestle. Asma has also worked as an advisor to the government and the ministry of IT and Telecom in shaping up the e-commerce and digital policy for Pakistan. Developing the first mobile banking (easypaisa) strategy, running the first Telco/e-commerce partnership, leading the countrys first Daraz Black Friday and driving the first digital Pakistan website are a few of the many achievements that Asma has to her credit. We are glad to have her as part of our panel to share key insights on the challenges of digital ecosystem expansion in Pakistan and how well the government is supporting this mission.

  Country Director Careem

• Atif Rais Khan

  Atif Rais Khan

  Co-Founder & Chairman LMKR/LMKT

  "Atif Rais Khan is Cofounder and Chairman of LMKR and LMKT; two distinct technology companies. An experienced CEO, Board Member, and entrepreneur with over 30 years of international business experience with private as well as government entities. Atif is also the majority shareholder and Chairman of StarTimes Communications Private Limited, a subsidiary of StarTimes Communications China - global provider of direct-to-home (DTH) broadcasting which was recently awarded a DTH license by PEMRA."

  Co-Founder & Chairman LMKR/LMKT

• Dr. Arshad Ali

  Dr. Arshad Ali

  Chairman, OPEN Islamabad

  "Dr. Arshad Ali is currently the Executive Director at the HEC. He has over 100 nationally and internationally acclaimed publications to his name. He has also been awarded numerous medals for being a distinguished scientist and researcher. He is actively working on various research projects with Stanford USA, Caltech USA, UWE UK, and University of South Brittany France. He has served as member of the International Advisory Board of the “International ICFA Workshop on HEP Networking, Grids, and Digital Divide Issues for Global e-Science”."

  Chairman, OPEN Islamabad

• Dr. Vaqar Ahmed

  Dr. Vaqar Ahmed

  Joint Executive Director - SDPI

  Dr. Vaqar Ahmed is the Joint Executive Director at Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI). Earlier, he has served UNDP as Advisor, and has undertaken assignments with Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and Ministries of Finance, Planning and Commerce in Pakistan. He has published extensively in areas such as macroeconomic modeling, inclusive growth and infrastructure reforms, trade and taxation policies, regional trade agreements, trade in services, energy governance, border-related trade infrastructure, youth employment, women-led social enterprises, and social safety nets.

  Joint Executive Director - SDPI

• Faisal Aftab

  Faisal Aftab

  Lakson Investments Venture Capital Fund

  "Faisal is Managing Partner of Lakson Investments Venture Capital (LIVC). He has over 18 years of experience as an executive, investor and entrepreneur in media-tech, real estate, venture capital, financial services and management consulting. He has been employed by, or acted as an advisor to several public and private sector corporations as well as the Government of Pakistan. Prior to leading LIVC, Faisal was an Executive Vice President in New York at CloudStream Media Inc., an Intel Capital backed Over The Top (OTT) content streaming service and technology provider."

  Lakson Investments Venture Capital Fund

• Maleeka Bokhari

  Maleeka Bokhari

  Parliamentary Secretary - Law & Justice

  Barrister Maleeka Bokhari is currently serving as parliamentary secretary of law & justice. She has over 8 years experience of working in various legal/advisory roles in both UK and Pakistan. She also established a broad civil practice which includes advice on all corporate, regulatory, property and employment law matters. She also works as a lead transaction advisor for a number high profile clients in the oil and gas industry, public-private partnership projects, in addition she also advised and assisted in drafting legislation and legal amendments for a political party in Pakistan, which includes the Anti-Terrorism Act 1996, Islamabad Local Government Amendment Act 2013, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtsesab (Accountability) Commission Act 2016 and Arbitration Amendment Act 2013. She was appointed as a member the judicial commission legal task force on 2013 general elections rigging, and a member of the joint opposition legal team on Panama Papers in Pakistan, involved in drafting the terms of reference for the proposed judicial commission on the aforesaid matter.

  Parliamentary Secretary - Law & Justice

• Meenah Tariq

  Meenah Tariq

  Consultant and Head of Strategy at Invest2Innovate (i2i)

  Meenah Tariq’s latest position was the Head of Strategy and Accelerator at Invest2Innovate Pakistan. In her role at i2i, Meenah supported hundreds of entrepreneurs since 2015, across a wide variety of industries and geographies. She is a passionate supporter of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Pakistan and has been designing and implementing programs to practically support women entrepreneurs, encourage entrepreneurial mindsets in young people, and equip entrepreneurs across the country with the business acumen required to scale high-impact businesses and SMEs. Beyond running the i2i Accelerator program, she conducts trainings on business creation and scale, mentors a number of startups, and teaches entrepreneurship at local business schools at the undergrad level. Meenah is also constantly experimenting with business ideas of her own - the latest is an experiential gift delivery platform operating in Islamabad and Pindi! Prior to I2I, Meenah was completing her MBA at Babson College, as a Fulbright Scholar.

  Consultant and Head of Strategy at Invest2Innovate (i2i)

• Melinda Good

  Melinda Good

  Operation Manager World Bank Pakistan

  Melinda Good is the Operations Manager in the World Bank Pakistan office. She oversees the World Bank’s approximately $8b investment program in Pakistan, covering human development, sustainability, infrastructure and economy and competitiveness. Melinda has worked in the World Bank’s Washington, DC and Indonesia offices. Melinda began her career as a lawyer in private practice, and worked with the Asian Development Bank and the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

  Operation Manager World Bank Pakistan

• Mohsin Termezy

  Mohsin Termezy

  ICT Sector Specialist at USAID Small & Medium Enterprise Activity Program

  Mohsin seeks passionate talent who are out to write new stories.  He is a fintech professional evangelizing and supporting organizations preparing themselves for digital transformation. Born into an expat family, his belief in entrepreneurship, diversity and inclusion helped him traverse a journey of 22 years from flight simulators to payment systems to development sector engagement. Working for global brands like Citibank, Samba Financial Group, Dhabi Holdings taught him growth but his true pride is his experience of building the first true mobile app development company of Pakistan in 2001 raising money with TMT Ventures- the first VC fund of Pakistan. He is currently building ICT sector interventions with USAID Small and Medium Enterprise Activity (SMEA) program to help IT/ITES enterprises achieve growth , enable SME digitization and access to finance. He holds a bachelors in Avionics Engineering, MBA from IBA, Karachi and diploma in Supply Chain Management

  ICT Sector Specialist at USAID Small & Medium Enterprise Activity Program

• Mudassar Hussain

  Mudassar Hussain

  Board Member | Member Telecom, Ignite, USF, PSEB. PTCL | MOITT

  Mr. Mudassar Hussain is currently serving as a Member (Telecom) in the Ministry of Information Technology & Telecom. He sits on the board of PTCL, ,Ignite, USF and PSEB. He is an expert in Telecom Policy, Information Technology, strategy formulation and Telecommunications research. Prior to joining MoITT, working as Telecom Policy & Regulatory Consultant with Ufone and being at the MoITT as Director he served on the Boards of the National Telecommunications Corporation, the Telecom Foundation and the National Radio Telecommunications Corporation.

  Board Member | Member Telecom, Ignite, USF, PSEB. PTCL | MOITT

• Naeem Zamindar

  Naeem Zamindar

  Ex Chairman Pakistan Board of Investment

  Naeem Zamindar is CEO of Zamindar Capital and Former Minister of state and chairman of Pakistan Board of Investment. Naeem has on his credit the setting up of Pakistan fund initiative as Acumen Pakistan chief executive officer. Previously, Naeem had served as Wateen Telecom CEO; Mobilink (now Jazz) CEO, and a senior investment manager at Intel Capital in Silicon Valley, where he was involved in over 20 investments in high tech firms. He is a professional certified by the State of Washington as a CPA and has an MBA from the prestigious INSEAD Business School. His vision is to promote and enable Pakistan as an attractive investment destination.

  Ex Chairman Pakistan Board of Investment

• Owais Anjum

  Owais Anjum

  CEO eMumba

  Owais is currently CEO of eMumba. He is a Silicon Valley trooper for a good number of years, is a Spartan armed with an MBA from San Jose State University, the oldest public institution on the West Coast of USA. He has led a subsidiary of a Silicon Valley Company in Pakistan and is now administering his own startup, eMumba. One of the biggest achievements of his startup is “Cricout – A Social Network for Cricket” available online and in the form of smartphone apps. Owais is an esteemed and distinguished member of the Islamabad entrepreneurial circle and volunteers his time for mentoring. He has also been an active member of OPEN Silicon Valley chapter in the past.

  CEO eMumba

• Owais zaidi

  Owais zaidi

  Co-Founder CreditFix

  Owais is the Co-founder and CEO of CreditFix, Pakistan’s first Digital Lending Company. CreditFix utilizes Machine Learning and Big Data and combine to enable low income borrowers to borrow for big ticket loans for starting or growing business. It is the only digital lending player in emerging market that is doing ticket sizes up to ,000 completely digitally. Owais also founded The Hive, Pakistan’s most premium co-working space which is currently in growth mode and expanding across Pakistan. He actively evangelizes open source technology and believes in power of collaboration through crowdsourcing and social networks. He has delivered lectures across South Asia and Middle East on electronic payments and commerce, founding and managing startups and financial inclusion. He is passionate about value creation through use of technology for business and social development."

  Co-Founder CreditFix

• Rabeel Warraich

  Rabeel Warraich

  CEO Sarmayacar

  Rabeel Warraich is the Founder of Sarmayacar, a recently launched seed fund syndicate dedicated for Pakistani startups. He is currently vice president at private equity firm GIC Investment Management based in London. He specialized in Economics from University of Oxford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has experience of working with Morgan Stanley, Convergent Wealth Advisors etc.

  CEO Sarmayacar

• Sayyed Ahmad Masud

  Sayyed Ahmad Masud

  CEO | Co-Director of Change Mechanics | Founders Institute

  Sayyed Ahmad Masud is CEO & Co-director of Change Mechanics | Founders Institute.He is an advertising & branding guy with over 3 decades in the industry who now helps build Start-ups and develop an innovation economy. He used to mentor and coach the new generation of Start-ups and aspiring entrepreneurs. Previously he is not only the part of Pakistan’s entrepreneurial ecosystem but also had a wide network in Asia and Silicon Valley. He was also the part of The Indus Entrepreneurs and the Islamabad Director for the Global Tech Accelerator. He is also teaching Entrepreneurship at the Master’s level and also in the Advisory Committees of 3 leading Universities.

  CEO | Co-Director of Change Mechanics | Founders Institute

• Shandana Gulzar Khan

  Shandana Gulzar Khan

  Parliamentary Secretary Ministry of Commerce

  Shandana is Parliamentary Secretary at Ministry of Commerce. She is experienced Trade and investment Legal professional with a demonstrated history of working in the legal services industry. She is Skilled in Negotiation, International Trade, International Economic Law, Policy Analysis, Strategic legal frameworks and Dispute Settlement. Strong, disciplined legal professional with a Master of Laws (LL.M.) focused in Corporate Governance; Economics of Law and Regulation; WTO and International Economic Laws from University of Cambridge.

  Parliamentary Secretary Ministry of Commerce

• Syed Ahmed

  Syed Ahmed

  Chairman | CEO of PASHA | DPL

  "Syed Ahmad is the Founder and CEO of DPL, a leading IT exports company based in Islamabad. He is also an industry leader . Currently, he is the Chairman of P@SHA, the only Govt licensed representative IT trade body in Pakistan. He is also the author of Digital Policy of PTI, which is part of PTI’s manifesto. At present, he is a member of Prime Minister's Task Force on IT & Telecom. Syed is currently serving various government entities such as Pakistan Software Export Board, KPIT Board and incubators such as NEST I/O and Comsats Cubator-1ne."

  Chairman | CEO of PASHA | DPL