Why I’m passionate about nurturing Pakistan’s free thinkers and young entrepreneurs

You may have seen the famous TED Talks with Sir Ken Robinson – a British author, speaker, and international advisor on education – titled ‘Do schools kill creativity?’. It’s an unflinching take down of the prevalent approach to moulding young minds.?

With more than 56.3 million views, his demand for creativity in education is the most-watched TED Talk of all time. He argues that education systems around the world – from high school to college – undermine the value of creativity, thereby killing the potential of many naturally talented future entrepreneurs.?

Although this is a controversial topic, I do believe that there is a misalignment between education and the unknown jobs of tomorrow. The world of work has changed so much in just a couple of decades, and yet our approach to preparing youngsters entering the marketplace has barely altered.

At Hashoo, we have prided ourselves on recognising raw talent. High quality college degrees and educational certificates are fantastic of course, but my management team is always on the lookout for those with a gift for divergent thinking – the ability to ask open-ended questions, work on problem-solving, share ideas, and build on learning experiences with a team.

In this uncertain modern world, these skills are priceless – the pandemic taught us that!

Looking wider, it’s clear to me that for Pakistan to build on its youthful promise, leaders in every sector must help cultivate and support a generation of true, natural entrepreneurs – because there’s so much to play for.

Pakistan start-ups raised nearly?$365.8 million?in 2021 alone, a staggering 450 per cent increase over funding raised in 2020. This new breed of enterprises is primarily focused on revolutionising the country’s ecommerce, fintech and transportation sectors. However, despite the exponential growth much progress remains to be made before we can compete with global benchmarks.

That’s why it’s so important that we invest even more time and effort on nurturing visionary young people with ‘outside of the box’ abilities. We must be willing to look beyond the traditional parameters when hiring, training, and mentoring.

Who knows what they might go on to do. For my part I am bowled over with the concepts my own sons are already discussing amongst themselves and I try and encourage them to be as curious and as bold as possible making sure I give them time and attention when we discuss their ideas,

We might be giving a leg up to the next Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos or Steve Jobs – and with such a young, tech savvy population in Pakistan this increasingly seems possible.