HEC, PEP to establish Student Start-up Business Centers in 9 govt Universities

The Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC), the Promotion of Education in Pakistan (PEP) Foundation as well as the 9 government zone universities in Pakistan have signed an MoU in order to open “Student Start-up Business Centers” in the partaking universities. The ceremony for signing MoU was held at the HEC Secretariat.

The Student Start-up Business Centers are intended to promote entrepreneurship between the aspirants who are a part of the higher education system in the state. This program will offer the essential support and hence these aspirants could unveil their own businesses.

The centers will also detect and attract sources of financial aid from the investors, business community as well as the donors. A student free enterprise fund will also be establish, which would also be controlled by the centers. The funds will be used to help the most talented upcoming entrepreneurs in the establishment of their own businesses.

In the light of MoU, all the investor parties will donate Rs. 2 million each for every business center as well as the universities will deposit at least five start-ups annually. The upcoming entrepreneurs would be needed to prepare the tenders along with the detailed future strategies, achievability and budget studies. The start-up centres will help the candidate entrepreneurs in making and working in proposals.

Higher Education Commission will work on arranging mentoring workshops sometimes. The finals selection of tenders would be controlled through a selection committee comprising of the HEC officials, university committee members, PEP Foundation legislative body as well as the market experts.

The list of government zone universities which signed the MOU are:

o   National University of Sciences and Technology, (NUST) Islamabad

o   Virtual University, (VU) Lahore

o   Pakistan Institute of Fashion and Design, Lahore

o   University of Agriculture, (UOA) Faisalabad

o   Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro

o   University of Science and Technology, Bannu

o   Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur

o   Government College University, Faisalabad

o   COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, (CIIT) Islamabad

Even though, addressing at the MoU signing ceremony, Chairman of Higher Education Commission, Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed claimed that the Higher Education Commission has invested Rs.50 million in “Student advancement endowment fund” in total 50 government sector universities.

President of PEP Foundation, Dr. Khalid Iqbal, claimed that the higher education sector has enhanced drastically during the earlier era and contributing in the upcoming business potential from the education sector is necessary for enhancing the economy of the state.

This new step will definitely go a long way in assisting the financial state of the nation as well as its people if it would control in a proper way. Such a large scale tycoon investment program has an exceptional potential if the government organizations as well as the universities control to work on upcoming talent to give well-versed professionals, business tycoons as well as the leaders who can compete along with the rest of the world.