MUZAFFARABAD:The graduates of Business Incubation Center (BIC) setup at the University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (UAJK) have earned 4.5 million rupees from their small-scale startups in a short period.
This was disclosed at a briefing given to Vice-Chancellor UAJK Prof. Dr. Muhammad Kaleem Abbasi by Director Business Incubation Center Mohsin Pervaiz Banday, Manager Tayyab Khalid, Business Leads Ms. Umm-e-Aimen and Khizar Riyaz here on Thursday.
It was informed that under the National Expansion Plan (NEP) of NICs, over 100 students and youth recently passed out in two batches from UAJK received complete technical support, office space, internet facility and other equipment along with fifteen thousand rupees per month for each member of the business team.
They disclosed that twenty successful business startups earned a total profit of over 4.5 million rupees in a short period, which is a great success story at national level.
The Vice-Chancellor was briefed that the National Expansion Plan of NICs is being successfully run in the selected public sector universities of Pakistan and UAJK is the only university implementing this vital national project in AJK in collaboration with the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) and Ministry of Information Technology (MoITT).
They added that the objective of this initiative is to encourage innovation amongst youth by incubating startups and strengthening the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country.
The officials of the Business Incubation Center thanked the Vice-Chancellor for his wholehearted support and patronage of this important project being successfully continued in UAJK.
Speaking on the occasion, Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Muhammad Kaleem Abbasi said that this is a matter of great satisfaction and pride that the University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir is focusing on the promotion of entrepreneurship and equipping the students with practical skills along with awarding them with the degrees in relevant disciples. “Such business centers can help the youth to make their dreams come true”, he added.
The Vice Chancellor said that UAJK will continue to encourage all such initiatives that help address unemployment in the region and engage students in constructive activities.
Congratulating the officials of the BIC for the success of their program, he said that students must be provided opportunities to interact with those local successful businessmen who started from scratch with scant resources and later got a prominent place in the industry.
“Such interactions would be helpful for the entrepreneurs to get inspiration and learn from their experiences”, the Vice Chancellor suggested.
He underlined the need to establish a strong and effective link between these startups with the industry for their further growth and expansion.
Dr. Kaleem Abbasi also emphasized that the researchers should also focus on the problems of small and medium business startups so that those starting new businesses are well aware of these problems in advance and can formulate appropriate strategies to solve them in time.