Course Description

What will you learn? This is an introductory course that will take you through the whole process of how a company evolves from ideation stage to a potential exit. You will learn the basics of how a student or an aspiring entrepreneur with zero capital can start a company. The whole course is built on using the free tools to validate an idea, build MVP and acquire customers. This course teaches you how to tackle challenges at each stage of your entrepreneurial journey. It is helpful for those who have no prior knowledge of entrepreneurship and are thinking of stepping into it. The early stage founders can also extract a lot of value from the case studies and key learnings presented in this course. Why should you take this course? It is being taught by someone who started his career from scratch and went on to become a renowned social entrepreneur of Pakistan. In this course, he has shared the key learnings from the past 30 years of his life. The course is enriched with examples of how he built his social enterprise, DAASTAN and how it evolved over time. What mistakes to avoid, what documents to maintain and most importantly what questions VCs and Angels ask when you go for fundraising. Previously, he has worked with KPIT Board as lead trainer where he developed and delivered the course on blogging and content writing to train 3000 women in KP and then 900 youth of newly merged districts. He led the research and content development for the Punjab Police’s online course titled Police Awam Saath Saath for citizens to learn about their rights. Who is teaching it? It is taught by Syed Ommer Amer, who is the first and the only Pakistani to receive the Media Information Literacy (MIL) Award by UNESCO 2021. He was a regional finalist of the Commonwealth Youth Award 2021 and has been actively covered by UNDP. His social entrepreneurial experience includes competing at regional finals at Hanoi, Vietnam, showcasing as Top 20 social enterprises of South Asia at Asia Pacific Youth Forum 2019, Guangzhou, China and then in International Youth Innovation Conference 2019 Shenzhen, China where he qualified for semi-finals. He was also runners up at Asia Pacific Youth Exchange Thailand 2019. He has been a part of Pakistan’s entrepreneurial ecosystem since 2014 and this course is a culmination of the learnings from Plan9, Telenor Velocity, NIC Islamabad, Accountability Lab and Spring Board Plus Accelerator by Youth Co:Lab - a project of UNDP. He is the direct descendent of a renowned educationist Muhammad Basir, the man who invented a toolkit for Urdu calligraphy in subcontinent in 1800s. Most of Ommer’s family is involved in the education sector. However, he chose a path less travelled by i.e. a creative social entrepreneur.