P@SHA Launch Pad an Exciting Start! (Lahore Event)

P@SHA Launch Pad, had its first two events over the weekend in Lahore and Karachi. I was lucky to attend the one in Lahore and it was a great event full of energy and feeling that people are ready to work together to take things to next level.

I am taking help from two wonderful coverage posts written by Rai Azlan for Lahore event

P@SHA Launch Pad Lahore and I

The winner for Lahore was  FaceXs,  followed by Hozaa a video search algorithm, Congratulations to both of them on a well deserved win their product ideas and pitch were definitely the best.

The other ideas that were presented with were as follows out of 110 nominations 20 were shortlisted to give their pitch.

First up was Max99 a mobile chat application, presented by Farhan Riaz who was the co-founder, some of the features include translation bots and built-in browser support, The presentation could not be contained in the allocated 5 minutes because they went into details. were not able to convince the judges of a monetization value of their product or how they will make mone.

Second one was Vcred presented by Khurram Ali, which allows degree verification, he was able to wrap the presentation in time, because i knew the product i understood, but I guess for some one new the presentation was not pinpoint enough. The questions he could not clearly answer we around how trust will be built for  his product. Another issue Judges identified were how he would develop partnership with HEC etc, also there was a need identified by allowing institutes to validate degrees of new students.

After this was FaceXs by Farhan Masood the winning product, his pitch was polished and the fact that he already had customers helped build the credibility and use of the product. The only issue judges raised were how easy could that be replaced by rfid based system, his answer RFID based systems don’t help with buddy punching. Great product good presentation.

Alternate Gears was up next there product was a touchslate pc, product was good though it crashed in between (Some thing very common for Demos ), the downside was that presenter tried very hard to not switch to his comfortable language resulting in a not so clear message, the poor chap was grinded by judges for finding innovation in product where the parts came from etc, I think even if they designed it here it was a good effort (how ever presentation counts a lot of how you defend it), and when the presenter was up against the wall some one from marketting showed up. I have used this companies 3g to Wireless Router and worked pretty well (works to convert your Wordlcall, PTCL evo to an access point).

Then it was turn for Exam Master solution for teachers and educationalists, the technology portion was covered in detail, how ever Hassan (presenter) was stumped by the judges due to absence of Market research and business aspect for his product.

Up next was BudEx idea was based on social interaction and using your social networking to send and receive things, so lets say a friend of my cousin is travelling from UK to Lahore, i can get him to carry an iPhone , the idea was good how ever it was shot down due to security issues and current strict scannings at airport, I personally thing if executed correctly it might well be a good area, another area which was not presented clearly was business aspect.

Then it was turn for Go Green if i understood it correctly it was a mobile app development platform where you develop once and deploy to mutliple mobile phones with different resolutions and specs and OSes, to be fair i left the presentation hall so did not have a clear idea of product, If some one from our readers can fill in the gaps it should help, presentation wise in first few minutes i was in the hall a lot of time was wasted on company profile, so i am sure judges would have had their say in it.

Then it was time for findnumbers.pk a service to let your friends and family know of your change of numbers (telling a selective number of friends, blocking others etc), it was a neat idea nicely executed, how ever like majority the money making aspect was missing.

Next up was schoolguide.pk a portal for discussing and talking about educational institutes, the idea is neat, however it will take time to become main stream there were some very valuable suggestions given, and I guess with right feature set and planning this could well become a one stop place to find out about schools and stuff.

Following it was another portal PakReviews the idea was to have a place where you could review any thing, i believe the need to find a niche and then grow from there, also there is a potential to get it write and ride the wave early on of Internet user boom. Pak reviews has some content but again you wont find it related to one are, i guess they will improve after feedback from judges.

Then i was time for our second winner Hooza a video search product, it was a brilliant product and idea, wonderfully presented, and my opinion if some one from the list of particpants can hit big time and I mean real big time (think of google acquiring ) this might be the idea, I will get you guys a detailed product review soon

Next was Naqsha.biz we covered Naqsha.net way back so this was an extension to it add ing your businesses, i remember Naqsha actually used GPS to accurately map streets and addresses and had some pretty interesting data to show for it.

Following it was an Idea for a portal and place for all Free Lancers from Pakistan called CyberLancing, Though they had some thing, and I do agree there is a need to cross collaborate between the free lancers from Pakistan, how ever all details need to be worked out they did not clarify all aspects in Presentations.

Up next was TeeBuzz, A portal where you can design your own shirts and get them delivered to you. The idea was nice, how ever judges thought and I agree the issues of Fabric quality etc would hamper them, he though had an idea of his market size.

Note: At this time i left the last two reviews are based on tweets and info i can gather on web regarding the event.

Then it was time for Nibula.net a place to organize your social network and get them to an event (thats what i could understand), Again as i was not physically present it would be unfair to judge the product, I do get the idea but need to see how the business side was figured out.

Last one was Performance Advertising Network, a google adsense alternative. again as i gather there were numbers missing from the presentation.

So thats about it on the coverage i would add my own comments in a separate follow up post, keep tuned in for Karachi Coverage. It would be unfair not to mention people whos tweet helped me fill in the blanks they are

@rai_azlan, @mnakbar, @usman_latif and @huzaifahm