South Asia Investor Review

OPEN Forum 2019 drew hundreds of Pakistanis and Pakistani-Americans to Santa Clara Convention Center in  Silicon Valley  on Saturday April 20, 2019.  This year's  conference  featured a keynote by Karachi-born Mudassir Sheikha, co-founder of  Careem ride-hailing service . In addition, there were sessions on  artificial intelligence , blockchain technology, financial technology and entrepreneurship.  Careem has recently been acquired by Uber for $3.1 billion.  The attendees included entrepreneurs, technologists, business executives, investors, lawyers, accountants and others who make up the tech startup ecosystem of Silicon Valley. Careem Co-Founder's Keynote: Mudassir Shiekha, born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, gave the morning keynote. He talked about his personal and entrepreneurial journey and the challenges he faced along the way. His first hand experience of riding roof-tops of buses in Karachi stayed with him and eventually ...

Afiniti and Careem are two technology unicorns engineered in Pakistan by Pakistanis. AI (artificial intelligence) startup Afiniti software has largely been engineered in Lahore while taxi hailing service Careem's technology has mostly been developed in Karachi. Here's more about these unicorns: Careem: Careem is a taxi hailing app that is giving its American competitor  Uber  a run for its money in a region stretching from Pakistan to the Middle East and North Africa. The company cofounded by Mudassir Sheika, a Pakistani national, is headquartered in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Careem's last round  was valued at over a billion dollars when it raised $350 million from Japanese e-commerce firm Rakuten and Saudi Telecom Company (STC) at the end of 2016, according to  Tech Crunch . Careem's software has been developed by its technology partner  VentureDive  based in Karachi, Pakistan.  VentureDive was started by serial Pakistani entrepreneur...