To Plan9 with love!
This is a personal account of my experience at working for the Pakistan’s largest tech incubator, Plan9.
“Welcome to PITB Hafsa, we hope your stay would be a pleasant one”, these were the words that ended my first encounter with Dr. Umar Saif. The moment I left the building, my heart was enshrouded with awe, mystery and a twinge of uncertainty. I had lots of questions running through my mind, I kept wondering what was I doing here, this place is called the Arfa Software Technology Park and the man who just interviewed me is the IT prodigy of Pakistan. I reconciled with my shaky heart and tried to reason with myself, I have got nothing to do with technology and how will I ever run an incubator which for obvious reasons didn’t sound like an attractive thing to me at that point. Coming from Kinnaird College, doing my undergraduate degree in Media Studies, with a flair for fashion, journalism, history and languages, I felt bizarre. I got home that day, did some research on incubators in the world and was still not sure how will we ever pull off such an initiative in Pakistan. Nevertheless, I joined Plan9-PITB on 1st August, 2012 with my dad being his protective, caring-self gave me a million dollar advice, “Look beta, never compromise on your principles, if you ever feel this is not for you then leave it, I always got your back. Pursue what your heart desires”
I was under emotional duress; I told him not to worry because I was not going to war but thanked him for his blessings and wishes. Hence started my journey with Plan9 which initiated with some fiery reluctance, punctuated with many high and low tides has now complacently reached to a level of steady romance.
The early two months were a roller coaster ride but it wasn’t all fun, it was messy, loud and at the same time quite demoralizing. I was overworked; felt irritated and just wanted to resign. I missed my friends, I missed my family. I missed my college life. I missed my freedom. I missed seeing the sun. I thought I made a wrong decision by opting for this job. There was work coming from every corner and the moment I used to get up and wrap up my stuff to leave, I would get a call to stay back for some meeting. I thought this was not for me; I won’t be able to cope up. Now you must be wondering why I didn’t leave already instead of cribbing about it every day; well sometimes life’s biggest lessons are learned through the lowest lows.
I have a firm belief in God that He puts you in a situation only when He knows you are capable of handling it. And I just knew that I needed to figure out the hidden purpose or some majestic revelation behind all this.
On the orientation day, after we got finished with all the launchpads in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad, I saw so many hopeful faces, excited to start their new lives. I witnessed energy, positivity and a drive to be successful among the young men and women gathered in the auditorium. Once the incubation started, despite having few operational hiccups, I tried making an effort to read more and more online to understand the startup culture, began spending time with the incubatees, did ice-breaking activities, for the first time in two months I started enjoying my work. I could see its worth. It all started making sense to me. I began to value the trust that people have in us. I was coming back to my real chirpy self, what happened in the next 10 months was my life’s most beautiful learning experience. Yes I would call it beautiful and meaningful. Plan9 opened countless doors for me; created such adrenaline-charged channels for me, made me discover motivating things about people and enlightened me about life and its shenanigans. I interacted with hundreds of interesting speakers, trainers, investors and mentors, had the chance to engage with several students, both from Pakistan and from different parts of the world. My usual day would kick off with replying to 20 emails, calling about 10 really intelligent people, skyping with some potential people who could write for Plan9 to recruiting interns for us. Every day, I learnt new things at Plan9. I fell in love with this fast-paced, stimulating and remarkable startup culture. I was mesmerized by how much talent lies within Pakistan. I would willingly stay up all night just to find out more about the brilliant people who are doing inspiring work for their country.
With the expansion in our core team, I set my mind to exploring my skills, honing my talents, and appreciating the work that we were doing. Dr. Saif’s constant encouragement and the team’s selfless devotion towards making Plan9 a success gave me a great feeling of satisfaction. Nabeel’s utmost faith in the team and his immaculate sense of managing all of us is worth a case study. He treated us like entrepreneurs from day one; he respected our individuality and never interfered in our tasks like a pesky neighbour. I found a confidante and a loyal friend in Sarah, Mariam became my voice of sanity and peace while Uzair turned into a calm go-getter who would fight for his team. Ebad is the sort who you could always trust to be on your side regardless of the circumstances.
All of us became one family woven by the threads of trust, faithfulness and commitment. We worked together, we fought at the oddest hours, we did brainstorming sessions, we disagreed on certain points, we decorated our rooms, we started believing in miracles, and we ended up over delivering. The thrill, the delight, the rush of working together; be it a talk session, arranging a conference or a workshop was quite evident through our work.
In a matter of twelve months, Plan9 has achieved worldwide recognition. Our startups, Eyedues, HomeTown and Kickstoro stole the show in the international arena. Peercloud got acquired for their brilliant skills. Hybrid Signals, Trechnology and LAMP became self-sustainable.
Currently, there are 12 different success stories waiting to be unleashed at Plan9. The amount of hard work that these people put in, the kind of dedication that they have for their startups is a treat to watch.
As Plan9 turns 1 on 31st August, I wish Pakistan can have ten more Plan9s. We need to support our youth so that they can channelize their talents through productive platforms. Government has made a huge impact by promoting tech entrepreneurship in the form of Plan9. I hope and pray that this ecosystem flourishes with time and Plan9 keeps being the backbone of all the startups that are passionate and striving to find solutions to our many problems.
May we all remain “dreamers and doers” today and always!
