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 ...

The Organization of Pakistani-American Entrepreneurs (OPEN) hosted a dinner on Wednesday Feb 20, 2019, for young tech entrepreneurs from Pakistan who came this year to  Silicon Valley  to attend StartUp Grind Global Conference. About 50 people, including 20 from Pakistan, attended the event. L to R: Shahjahan Chaudhry, Jahan Ara, Riaz Haq, Rehan Jalil StartUp Grind: StartUp Grind describes itself as a "global community of entrepreneurs connecting 1.5 million entrepreneurs in over 500 chapters". It has chapters in all major Pakistani cities.  StartUp Grind  organizes a global conference every year in Silicon Valley. Young Pakistani Entrepreneurs with Riaz Haq Pakistani participation in this conference is growing with 40 delegates this year, up from 24 last year. Arzish Azam, founder of Ejad Lab, organizes this annual pilgrimage of Pakistani techies to Silicon Valley every year under the banner of Pak-US Technology Exchange. Participants pay their own e...

Hundreds of Pakistani-American entrepreneurs met on Saturday, June 2, 2012 at Silicon Valley's Computer History Museum for this year's annual conference called OPEN Forum held each summer. It's organized by the Organization of Pakistani-American Entrepreneurs (OPEN) in Silicon Valley.  The conference had a large number of sponsors, including dozens of Silicon Valley companies founded or managed by Pakistani-Americans. Successful social entrepreneur Salman Khan of Khan Academy was the keynote speaker. There were also a number of parallel tracks on various topics of interest to the community. Panelists included venture capitalists, business executives, entrepreneurs, engineers, lawyers, scientists, editors and reporters. I am sharing with my readers some of the highlights of the key sessions that I personally found interesting. Photo by Ali Hasan Cemendtaur INVESTMENT CLIMATE IN PAKISTAN – DO THE RETURNS OFFSET THE PERCEIVED RISKS?  It was moderated by Stephen ...