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I had been very busy over the last couple of days and was therefore unable to update you guys about day 2 and 3 of the TIE-Khudee workshop that was held at LUMS. The first session of day 2 was conducted by Monis Rehman where he basically talked about the art of giving a presentation that is presenting your idea in front of potential investors such as vcs’. This was followed by Umar Saif going through case studies of Avicena (why did it fail,) Google and Apple (why did they succeed.) The afternoon session was conducted by Asad Alam where he presented about the importance of the need to formulate correct business strategy before executing any idea. Day two ended with the audience being enlightened with Steve Jobs commencement address at Stanford University in he talked about 3 life changing experiences and concluded with him encouraging budding entrepreneurs to “stay foolish and stay hungry!”

Day 3 of the workshop basically comprised of a panel discussion whose participants included Shaukat Ali Ibra (Dean Suleman Dawood School of Business- LUMS,) Monis Rehman(Naseeb Networks,) Farooq Naseem (DWP Group,) Seema Aziz (Bareeze’, Care Foundation,) Abuzai Bukhari (Porche) and last but not least Dr. Khalid Chowdry (President TIE Lahore, Medipak.) Apart from Mr. Shaukat who talked about general things related to entrepreneurship and gave an academic perspective on the subject, the remaining participants shared their personal entrepreneurial experiences (success’ and failures) and the lessons they learnt. I personally found the panel discussion to be a great learning experience because these were success stories that I as a Pakistani could relate to and be proud of.

The first day of the TIE- Khudee workshop officially kick started the second round of the business plan competition, whereby each of the short listed top thirty teams are supposed to submit their respective business plans within two weeks. The workshop was held at the Rausing Executive Development Centre at LUMS and the opening address was delivered by Dr. Khalid Chowdhry (President TIE, Lahore chapter) followed by Monis Rehman (Naseeb Networks, rozee.pk) and Asad Alam( Head of Accounts & Finance faculty at LUMS) with the latter two along with Dr. Umar Saif( CS professor at LUMS) conducting the workshop through its three days . The first session was conducted by Umar Saif and he basically gave an overview of what entrepreneurship was all about. I did not come across anything new, and the same standard topics were being presented before a rather surprisingly naive audience. The second session was conducted by Asad Alam and he basically discussed the structure of a business plan, showing a glimpse of what was expected from the remaining participants. The structure for the competition has also been changed with the teams requiring to submit their business plans before the 5th of December after which the top ten plans will be selected and the respective teams will be required to present before a panel of venture capitalists on the 17th of December which coincides with the TIE Lahore Chapter annual conference.