Mashable Pakistan Lab

Danish Jabbar Khan is a social entrepreneur who works with women in rural communities in order to build their confidence so they can participate in local decision making and carve connections with relevant urban markets.

He is the CEO of Kaarvan Crafts Foundation, an organization which aims to enable women in low income communities across Pakistan to successfully pursue decent livelihoods.

Khan believes that the representation and participation of women will pave the path for a culture of peace in the country. To date, Kaarvan has touched the lives of more than 25,000 women in over 1,000 villages across Pakistan. Honouring his contribution towards gender equality, The International Alliance for Women recognized him as a Champion of Women Economic Empowerment and bestowed him the World of Difference Award for 2019.

Mashable Pakistan Lab talked to Danish Jabbar Khan about this transition from working for the corporate sector to becoming a social entrepreneur, Kaarvan’s journey and his role with the popular music bands EP and Call.

Sadaf Khan is the co-founder of Media Matters for Democracy (MMfD). She has been working in the field of journalism and media development sector in Pakistan for the past seventeen years. Currently, her work focuses on digital rights, media and internet governance and digital media information literacy in Pakistan.

MMfD is a Pakistani non-profit organization that works on press freedom and digital rights. The organization’s work includes; policy research, advocacy training and legal aid.

Connected to the ongoing global pandemic, MMfD recently, published a study titled, Public Trust in the Media during the Coronavirus Pandemic. This study was done as part of the Civil society for Independent Media and Expression (CIME) initiative jointly undertaken with the Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives and the Pakistan Press Foundation. The CIME initiative will contribute to the enhanced protection and promotion of freedom of expression and right to information in Pakistan by increasing the availability of knowledge about policy trends regarding these rights, raising awareness about potential challenges to the exercise of the rights, and by building the capacity of journalists, lawyers, and human rights defenders to respond to risks and violations.

Mashable Pakistan Lab talks to Khan about the study, the details around the research, its implication and what more needs to be done when it comes to the role of media.

Granaz Baloch dons multiple hats. She is a water researcher who also works on gender equality issues and community development. Baloch is also the Founder and Director of UDaan. The focus of her work revolves around UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which focus on the themes of poverty, education, clean water, and sanitation and gender equality.

Baloch is working as a water researcher and Teaching Fellow at the Department of Natural and Basic Sciences University of Turbat, Balochistan. She has an undergrad degree in Inorganic Chemistry from SBK Women University, Quetta and an M.Phil in Chemistry from University of Turbat. Beside these qualifications she is also an Acumen Fellow 2018, Alumni of YPFP and PUAN Alumni. She is also an alumni of Australia Awards short course for Water Governance in a Federated System Pakistan and short course of Water Law and Gender from Panjwani-Hisaar Water Institute (PHWI). Her personal interests include; travelling, music, books and tea.

Mashable Pakistan Lab talked to Granaz about various aspects of her work and how all of them are connected and aim towards sustainable development of her community and Pakistan.

Cosplaying has taken precedence over the years. The art of dressing up and role playing your favorite character ensues a world of its own. As exciting the whole thing is, being a dedicated cosplayer is equally demanding and requires utmost effort.

From looks to costume design to imitating gestures, it isn’t easy at all!

Mashable Pakistan Lab talked to Pakistan’s two most enthusiastic and popular cosplay artists who shared their exciting stories of their journey, experiences and reasons why they entered the cosplay industry.

Asad Shams had an interest in the animated arts and novels from his childhood. He is the person behind the first cosplay convention in Pakistan, TwinCon, held in 2014 in collaboration with his friends. Later in the years he has donned many characters from various movies, games to anime series and much more. His cosplay, the black suit version of Superman, was also displayed on the main screen of DC Comics.

Sameen Rahat has a Bachelors in textile designing and is currently working as a career advisor for A-level students at a local school. She started her cosplay journey from 2015 after TwinCon, which cemented her interest in being a cosplay artist and some of her key characters include; Harley Quinn, Chat Noir and Doctor Strange in addition to others from the Marvel Universe. Rahat coined the term, “halal cosplays” that went viral among the community.

The National Incubation Center and Jazz xlr8 organized Hacktivate 3.0, to find solutions in the field of agri-tech.

Hacktivate 3.0 turned out to be the largest agri hackathon, the ecosystem has witnessed to date with more than 30 partners contributing to the event in various capacities.

Mashable Pakistan Lab talked to the two winners of the Innovation Challenge, who shared the challenges faced by the agriculture industry in Pakistan, their ideas and the role their startups can play in improving the agriculture system in the country.

Usman Gondal is the founder of Crop Drop; a startup that is disrupting the supply chain by sourcing quality produce directly from farmers and delivering it to urban retailers, businesses, and service providers at an affordable price.

Anas Shaikh is the founder of Peepu, a startup that aims to empower the whole agricultural supply chain. Given the high number of middlemen and huge loss of harvest produce, Peepu has come up with an app based solution that connects farmers to consumers.

Dr Nosherwan Shoaib is the team lead at Smart Aquaponics. It is a startup that is addressing the problems of food insecurity and water shortage. They have combined the concepts of aquaculture and hydroponics to create a closed loop food production process.

Musharraf Ali Farooqi, is a renowned Pakistani author, translator and storyteller. As he says on his website; “These interests have converged over the years; one kind helping me discover the other, and taking me a little further into the past.”

His latest book, The Merman and the Book of Power, is written as a qissa genre that originated in the oral literatures of Urdu, Persian and Arabic.

Farooq is also known for working for children’s literature and is currently working on establishing a specialized Urdu language publishing programme. There are three different segments to his on this front and includes; an interactive storytelling and activity based learning programme called Storykit, an online Urdu Thesaurus and Kitab, a publishing house.

His honors include; Fellow, Harvard University South Asia Institute (Spring 2017), finalist for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2012 for Between Clay and Dust finalist for DSC Prize for Literature 2011 for The Story of a Widow  and PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant 2011 for Hoshruba.

In this podcast episode, we talk all things literature and publishing in Pakistan.

The National Incubation Center and Jazz xlr8 organized Hacktivate 3.0, to find solutions in the field of agri-tech.

Hacktivate 3.0 turned out to be the largest agri hackathon, the ecosystem has witnessed to date with more than 30 partners contributing to the event in various capacities.

Mashable Pakistan Lab talked to the two winners of Hacktivate 3.0. They shared their ideas and the role they can respectively play in improving the agriculture system in Pakistan and help the environment as well.

Zulfiqar Ahmed is the CEO of Innovation Lab. The company is developing an IoT-based system to monitor soil moisture and soil temperature for farms. Their aim is to reduce water wastage, reduce human intervention and increase the crop yield.

Dr Anam Munawar is the founder of Nano Enabled Agriculture. The startup is using nanomaterials to detect pesticide residue. Pesticide residue in different kinds of crops can have many side effects. Nanoparticles based pesticides can offer advantages, like reducing toxicity, improving the shelf life, and increasing the solubility of poorly water soluble pesticides. All of these could have positive environmental impacts. Fertilizers and pesticides based on nanomaterials can provide an important solution to the problem.

Dr Amir Khalil is an Egyptian veterinarian and the Director of Project Development at Four Paws. After studying veterinary medicine at Cairo University, Dr Amir received a scholarship to study wild animals in Pretoria, South Africa. 

He is known as the war vet, as he has been involved in saving animals from war zones and disaster areas. While his work gives you the impression that he is some sort of a cowboy, as Dr Amir mentioned in this podcast, the actual work is anything of the sort. His motto is that saving animals reflects saving humanity.

His association with Four Paws started as a volunteer and after a few years he started working as their Director of Project Development.

For Pakistanis he is the man who saved the world’s longest elephant, Kaavan and along with his team relocated him to a sanctuary in Cambodia during the ongoing pandemic. He also serenaded him with a Frank Sumatra song!

In this episode of Mashable Pakistan Lab, Dr Amir joins us from the Islamabad Zoo, and talks about this career in general, caring for our wildlife, Kaavan and the remaining bears that he is here to relocate.

Fatima Bhutto is the author of seven books; a combination of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Her two latest books are The Runaways is a novel that explores radicalization through the lives of three young individuals with very diverse backgrounds and New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi and K-pop is a non-fiction book that explores the new cultural trends that are on the rise.

In this podcast episode of Mashable Pakistan Lab, we talked to Bhutto about all things writing and the South Asia Literary Mentorship programme that she is a part of.

The South Asia Literary Mentorship programme aims to help budding writers learn the ropes of the field and help them navigate their way in the literary world. Joining the team for fictional work, Bhutto will be mentoring a writer over the course of twelve months, starting January 2021. Interested candidates can apply via https://soniafaleiro.wixsite.com/southasiaspeaks

The National Incubation Center  and Jazz xlr8 have launched yet another exciting hackathon – Hacktivate 3.0, to find solutions in the field of agri-tech.

Hacktivate 3.0 will be the largest agri hackathon the ecosystem has witnessed to date with more than 30 partners contributing to the event in different ways.

Mashable Pakistan Lab talked to two representatives of Hacktivate 3.0 to introduce the idea of this competition and its importance for Pakistan’s agri based economy.

Numair Shahzada is currently working as the Marketing Manager at the National Incubation Center. Previously, he was a founding member of the app based delivery startup Couch Potato, where he created the visionary design and communications direction for the brand. He has worked in Thailand at the only British Columbian International School in Bangkok, where he taught English as well as integrated digital marketing strategies and tactics to optimize lead generation as their Marketing Manager. As an entrepreneur he has run a digital marketing company, provided group meditation classes, IELTS training and most recently he co-founded Friends of Islamabad Zoo which is a citizen body that provides protection for the animals of the Islamabad Zoo in collaboration with the IWMB.

Nabeel Yusuf - Building; it’s what I do for a living. No, not in the traditional hammer and nail sense, but in the business development sense – whether it’s building a marketplace for a product I’m selling, building a series of original products, or building a business. The same rules apply ... What can I do to make people's lives better? My career spans a couple of decades and is made up of an interesting combination of cross industry work. From programming at a fortune 500 company to running a design studio on an island in Thailand it's been a colorful journey of finding my center. You can call me a spiritual generalist with a passion for everything odd.

The hackathon applications close on 21 November and the virtual event is scheduled to be held on 28 and 29 of November 2020. The top three winners will get cash prizes, and an opportunity to connect with the relevant stakeholders required to practically implement the winning ideas including investors, public sector representatives and mentors/domain experts. For application details visit https://nicpakistan.pk/hacktivate