Meet the woman who has been at the forefront of Pakistan’s tech industry for over a decade

PASHA President Ms Jehan Ara

Jehan Ara wears several hats. She is the president of the largest tech association in Pakistan, runs a Google-funded incubation space, and is an outspoken advocate for cyber freedom and net neutrality. Despite modestly describing herself as a “person of average intelligence”, Ara is widely known and respected throughout the country and synonymous with developments in startups, technology, and entrepreneurship.

Ara’s formative years were spent in Hong Kong, where her father worked as a banker, and where she obtained her primary education. After college, she got a job and worked in Hong Kong for several years, eventually moving to a regional-level role for a “major media firm”. However, once her father retired and decided to move his family back to Pakistan, she had no hesitation in quitting her job and joining them. This was in the mid-90s.

Ara’s work and exposure to new media prompted her to start a multimedia company shortly after her return to Pakistan, in partnership with a friend. Once the paperwork was done, she started meeting senior-level execs from companies such as IBM, and convincing them of the need to establish an online presence as a necessary equation in their marketing mix. Back then, internet reach in Pakistan was almost negligible due to high costs – and not everyone was convinced of her plans.

Eventually her firm started gaining traction and securing clients. It helped that it was one of the first companies in Pakistan to offer such services, thereby capitalizing on their early start. At the time, Ara also decided to join the Pakistan Software Houses Association (PASHA), as she believed it was necessary to be part of the association representing the space in which her company was trying to establish itself.

The name PASHA is actually a misnomer. While it started off as a trade association, the body is now actively involved in a number of outreach initiatives. These are part of their vision to promote technology-based startups as well as to be an advocacy group lobbying for better policies at the federal level.

As Ara’s business grew, so did her active engagement with PASHA. In 2001 she was offered the chance to be the president of the association, which she attributes to her non-political nature and neutrality with almost everyone else in the organization. At the time, the position was an honorary one, as PASHA had yet to evolve into an advocacy and training organization it is today.

The original incubators

For the next few years, Ara laid the foundations for PASHA to play an active role in the support and development of the tech community. She was motivated by a belief that the sector could dramatically reshape Pakistan’s economy by providing value-added services and jobs. By now the internet had well and truly permeated into the social fabric of Pakistan, helping churn out scores of graduates interested in the sector as well as establishing a healthy entrepreneurial spirit. The demands of her position grew to such an extent that, in 2007, she quit the company that she had established and accepted a full-time position role as PASHA’s president. There was no looking back.

It was no coincidence that PASHA’s aggressive entrance into nurturing startups in Pakistan came at the same time of Ara’s promotion to a full-time role. “Initially we started hosting events such as the startup insider series, Launchpad series, and the social innovation fund,” Ara tells Tech in Asia. “These competitions offered a significant sum of prize money, as well as mentorship opportunities.”

As the popularity of these competitions grew, so did the quality of presenting teams. “We noticed a lot of young, dedicated, and talented individuals with futuristic ideas, and our belief in Pakistan’s IT sector further strengthened,” she says. “The necessity of having a full-time incubation space grew as just hosting a few events per year was not enough. We needed to do more to catapult these products, help nurture them, and bring them recognition on a global stage.”

The concept for the future birth of PASHA’s own technology incubator, The Nest I/O, was now agreed upon in principle by all members of the board.