Seven of Pakistan’s top game developers pitched their gaming products to renowned investors at Google’s Asia-Pacific head quarters in Singapore to raise capital for scaling up their games. These game developers were chosen through a Google-partnered ‘Game Launcher’ cohort of Telenor Pakistan’s famed digital start-up accelerator program ‘Telenor Velocity’. In presence, at the Google Launcher event, were the world’s top gaming industry talent, technology leaders, as well as renowned investors. A day prior to the pitch gathering, top three of Pakistan’s seven teams, OT Ventures, The Knights and Big Alpha, were announced and were given the awards by the Pakistani High Commissioner to Singapore, Ms. Rukhsana Afzal. Must Read: Daraz: A marketplace driven by 20,000 sellers and 440 brands “To strengthen and transform the local gaming community in the country, Telenor Pakistan has made serious commitments and a testament to these efforts is Game Launcher,” said Sardar Abubakr, Chief Digital & Strategy Officer Telenor Pakistan. “The potential in Pakistan’s remarkably booming gaming industry is immense and Game Launcher is an effort by Telenor Velocity and Google to provide a platform to ambitious game developers and guide them on how to scale their ventures. I congratulate the participants of the seed funding event and wish them the very best of luck.” Out of the 40 participating Game Launcher teams, seven were chosen to join the investment funding event at Google HQ in Singapore. Launched in May 2019, Velocity’s gaming cohort, Game Launcher, aimed to convince the next gaming start-up generation to scale their service offerings by leveraging Telenor Pakistan’s platform and insights.TargetingPakistan’s underdog game developers to bring the next multi-million-dollargames out of Pakistan, Game Launcherbrought in industry gurus to educate and up-skill promising gaming start-ups on smart game development and monetization.
Telenor Velocity brings ‘DuckStories’ to Peshawar
Telenor Velocity’s Duck Stories reached Peshawar as the region is producing phenomenal entrepreneurs. The event was attended by industry representatives and budding entrepreneurs from Peshawar and neighboring areas like Swat. DuckStories is a series of regular events where accomplished entrepreneurs and professionals share their career mistakes and failures with the audience. They share instances from their lives where they had to ‘duck’, get back on feet and tread again towards their goals. The prime objective of the program is to eradicate the fear of failure and foster experimentation to strengthen the country’s startup landscape. The speakers for Peshawar chapter included NabeelQadeer, by the man behind “Idea CaroronKa” and Muhammad Mustafa who shared his learning from his startup Mouqa Online. They narrated life changing events from theirexperiences and the professional decisions they had to make, which at times proved to be failure but in retrospect paved way to better prospects. Must Read: With more than 10,000 4G sites, Pakistan runs on Zong 4G DuckStories have a characteristic fun element to them which make the whole event both amusing and enlightening.This episode was no different where the speakers shared both laughs and sighs as they recollected their lifelong struggles. “There is always more to learn from failures and mistakes than successes,” said Sardar Abubakr, Chief Digital and Strategy Officer, Telenor Pakistan. “Working closely with entrepreneurs, we at Telenor Velocity believe that it is crucial for them to have exposure to journeys of invaluable learning experiences from ‘now’ successful startups. Through fascinating stories of struggle, failure and renewed ambitions, DuckStories aims to bring hope to those who continue to struggle with achieving their ambitions and help make educated decisions.”