Entrepreneurship has become a major phenomenon in Pakistan. Among the highlights of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2014, local startup “TalLee” was selected for the GEW 50 2014 as one of the top 50 startup ventures from around the world — chosen from among 600 startups from 38 countries.
TalLee sells door bells; the innovation that makes these door bells so special is that they have GSM capability, so that the owner of the house gets a phone call (irrespective of location) and connects with the person who has pressed the doorbell. The idea was conceived by Rafi, who founded TalLee in April 2014 and was offered incubation space at NUST Technology Incubation Center (TIC).
A seminar on Entrepreneurship for Economic Growth was also held in Karachi on November 21, 2014, jointly organized by the Karachi School for Business and Leadership and the National Entrepreneurship Working Group. Various factors that inhibit the growth of entrepreneurship were discussed. Among these, the lack of focus on critical creative thinking in the country’s education system was identified to be a key reason why graduates prefer joining the rank of job-seekers and not creators.
This inspired me to visualize my job hunting days and also to further investigate why critical creative thinking is absent from our education system. In 2004, when I graduated from an engineering university, seeking a job was written on my forehead. Dropping CVs to company after company was foremost on my to-do list, and after several interviews, one company hit me with an unusual question: why don’t you become an entrepreneur?
I asked what an entrepreneur is. The interviewer explained, and I said to the interviewer that I can’t become an entrepreneur (I did not think about my career that way) as I am here for a job. He said all right, we will get in touch with you soon, and after that nothing happened!
But if we go through the course outline and curriculum of any engineering program in Pakistan, we come to the conclusion that engineers are well positioned to become entrepreneurs. Pakistan has 102 engineering universities accredited by Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) under which 303 programs are being taught, however, there are hardly any courses offering education on entrepreneurship (see this electronic engineering course outline). That’s why most engineering graduates have only one vision: to seek a job after graduation.
Engineering programs in Pakistan are usually taught over 4 years. The central idea of what you learned in your engineering studies is applied in the last year through a final year project, which is usually a product of some kind. After graduation, the only visible thing an engineer can sell in the market is a product; my product, for example, was a biometric security system (my final year project). But instead of trying to sell this product, I was aiming for a job. I did manage to get a job but my product was kept under the carpet.
According to the Overseas Pakistanis Ministry, more than 2.7 million Pakistanis left Pakistan for work in the last 5 years. The top six destinations are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the United States, the UK, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman), and EU countries. Pakistan is producing a vibrant young population, where brain drain does not matter, however there is a need to create an entrepreneurship curriculum in the engineering education system — one that encourages students to adapt entrepreneurship as their career alternative if there is a scarcity of jobs in the market.
Emad Sohail is a Senior Program Officer for CIPE Pakistan.
