Plan9’s collaboration with Austin City of Texas has bagged yet another achievement for the greater good of Pakistan. What started off with ATX+PAK Launch program almost 1.5 years ago, through which 5-7 entrepreneurs travel to Austin for 3 weeks after every 6 months, to explore the entrepreneurial space there, meeting with the top notch mentors and networking with the investors, later culminated to some top officials visiting Pakistan back in November 2016 and signing 4 MoUs with Plan9, including Tech Ranch, Pen Pal Schools, Capital Factory and 3 Day Startup.
This time around, while the 3rd cohort of startups is currently in Austin, Dr. Umar Saif, Chairman, PITB along with Nabeel A. Qadeer, Director Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development, PITB and Mian Faizan Mahmood, Assistant Program Manager at Plan9 are also in Austin to explore synergies with the City of Austin. Dr. Umar Saif only yesterday signed a MoU with the Mayor of Austin, Mr. Steve Adler and has declared to establish Lahore and Austin as Science cities. Following this great news we have another news to share with all the aspiring entrepreneurs out there. Mr. Nabeel Qadeer has signed another MoU with Capital Factory – Touchdown Austin program, the objective of which is to enhance foreign in-market startup incubator/accelerator programs and both public/private funds through a multiphase US market entry boot camp. Moreover, another objective is to prepare startups/SMEs for US market entry via commercialization training, mentoring, marketing & sales consulting, access to funding/VCs/Angel, financial & accounting expertise and customer acquisition support.
Basically this MoU is signed to tap into the delivery and management of the Global Market Access Program (GMAP). The GMAP is a three phase business acceleration program designed to rapidly and strategically assist foreign technology companies entering the US market with the least amount of risk. It is formulated to support the growing number of economies focused on increasing entrepreneurial activity through government policy and investment in early stage funding vehicles, technology incubators and accelerator programs.
The majority of these efforts help spur innovation and venture forming, however the shotgun approach of seed funding many can misfire with the lack of customer discovery activities and access to global market resources. GMAP is designed to filter & identify those high potential ventures (HPV) through a custom series of boot camps furthering US market based value proposition, go to market strategies and facilitate the runway to succeed while also managing proper expectation for US market entry.
There is a significant value in these HPVs participating in GMAP’s boot camp as a standalone program or integrated with in-country resources. The companies will obtain a real sense of the resources required to do business in the US and world markets through quality feedback on the future potential their product or service has in the marketplace.
The program helps companies ‘succeed fast or fail fast’ and the addition of GMAP as a partner means the feedback at every stage has a ‘US voice’ so it’s beyond just the in-country program telling their clients that the US is a good/bad option.
Plan9’s collaboration with Austin City of Texas through ATX+PAK has helped lay the foundation for the agreement signed today. This has been made possible because of the constant efforts of Alicia Dean, Senior Public Relations Specialist, Mian Faizan Mahmood and Nabeel Qadeer representing the Plan9’s front and the support extended by Greater Austin Asian Chambers of Commerce. More power to Pakistan and Austin!