Joseph Schumpeter, an economist and a political scientist, sees economic development as a continuum of series of new processes, new markets, new sources, and new organizations all of which are a product of entrepreneurial activity. The last couple of years or so have seen a significant number of start-ups and entrepreneurial ventures in Pakistan - especially in the tech world - along with mushrooming incubators, accelerators (see illustration) and facilitations such as workshops, seminars and interactive sessions. Not only that, entrepreneurship has also felt the thrust at the university level. Even the results have been encouraging; some very crude and unique ideas have been successfully launched.

While these are inspiring developments in the country, entrepreneurship ecosystem as taken globally is still in its stage of infancy in the country. This is what can also be picked up from the Global Entrepreneurship Index 2017. The Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute (GEDI) define entrepreneurial ecosystems at the socio-economic level as “…dynamic institutionally embedded interaction between entrepreneurial attitudes, abilities and aspirations, by individuals, which drives the allocation of resources through the creation and operation of new ventures.”

On a comparative basis, the country is still far behind its peers. With Global Entrepreneurship Index ranks from 0 – 100, Pakistan stand amongst the bottom ten countries at 122 out of 133, with score of 15.2. The index is based on three key aspects, as pointed out in the definition of entrepreneurship ecosystem: entrepreneurial attitudes, abilities and aspirations, which are further based on 14 pillar performance. These pillars can be seen in the spider chart above.

While the report does not show comparisons between economies, the GEDI has interactive data explorer that allows you to view the GEI results for a given country in a number of ways. For a comparison purpose, BR Research has compared Pakistan with India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka – south Asia in short. The spider chart shows country performance compared to three benchmark countries.

On individual basis, the strongest area (pillar) for Pakistan in the entrepreneurial ecosystem is high growth characterized by prospective market, followed by product innovation and opportunity perception (opportunity recognition); whereas the country falls significant short on areas like risk acceptance, risk capital (depth of capital markets), and the start-up skill – in the same order. India on the other hand, was not only ranked way above Pakistan (i.e. at 69), but was also among the top gainers on GEI 2017. The country not only fares better along Pakistan’s best performing factors, but has strongest areas like product innovation, process innovation, competition and risk acceptance. Its weakest area is technology absorption.

Lastly, what the interactive data also lets one answer the question, “Where should we put our resources to improve our GEI score?” For Pakistan, optimal increase in GEI score requires the optimal resource allocation focusing on improving risk acceptance, risk capital, start-up skills and human capital.

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List of Key Incubators and Accelerators in Pakistan


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     INCUBATOR/ACCELERATOR                     CITY


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1    Microsoft Innovation Center             Lahore


2    Social Innovation Lab                   Lahore


3    The Founder Institute    Islamabad,    Karachi


4    Telenor Velocity                     Islamabad


5    Revolt                                Peshawar


6    Plan9                                   Lahore


7    The Nest I/O                           Karachi


8    Invest2Innovate    Lahore, Islamabad & Karachi


9    LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship        Lahore


10    PlanX                                  Lahore


11    Serendipity                         Islamabad


12    The Incubator                        TOPI KPK


13    Technology Incubation Center, NUST  Islamabad


14    Arpatech Hatchery             Lahore, Karachi


15    CED IBA                               Karachi


16    Peracha Organization                  Karachi


17    SMEDA                                  Lahore


18    SEED Incubation Center                Karachi


19    BIC COMSATS                         Islamabad


20    NSPIRE                                 Lahore


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