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In November 2012, Invest2Innovate launched our first Accelerator program for seed-stage social enterprises in Pakistan. The i2i Accelerator piloted with five start-ups that convened in Lahore for monthly two-day workshops (we were hosted at the Lahore University for Management Sciences, i.e., LUMS). The sessions, on topics ranging from governance to legal compliance/registration to operations to branding & marketing, were led by more seasoned Pakistani entrepreneurs and experts. The goal was threefold: (1) to expose i2i Enterprises to local mentors who understood the Pakistani landscape & context, and how to build businesses within these realities, (2) to provide hands-on support to help grow these businesses, and (3) to build trust & transparency between entrepreneurs & potential investors before they pitched for investment.

One of our i2i entrepreneurs, Sajjad, posing at Zafar Khan’s organic farm Zacky Farms. We think “Poo Power” is a very apt tagline for his biogas enterprise!

On Sunday, the 1st Class of the i2i Accelerator – BLISS, Milk’Op, EcoEnergy Finance, OPEN & Renewable Energy Solutions – pitched to a group of investors at Plan 9 (the Punjab Information Technology Board’s incubator) in Lahore. There was a lot of energy in the room as investors engaged with the entrepreneurs in Q&A after their five-minute pitches and sat down with each entrepreneur in 10-minute deep dives (somewhat akin to speed dating). At the end of the evening, almost every investor requested a follow-up meeting with at least one enterprise, and almost everyone was interested in joining i2i Angels, the investor community we are building.

The deep dive sessions at the Investor Gathering. Like speed dating, except for potential investment!

As the Founder of i2i, I walked away from Sunday night exhilarated, emotional, relieved, but also introspective. The event went well, but it was by no means perfect. Our ability to make an impact in Pakistan’s entrepreneurship environment also does not hinge on this pilot or on this first event. This is just the beginning, and we have a lot of improvements to make, and a lot of work ahead of us. Below are some of the biggest takeaways I had from the whole experience:

1. I am so excited by the amount of energy, talent & support we have from the Pakistani entrepreneurship community. One thing that struck me time and again over the past few months was how many successful Pakistani entrepreneurs were willing to give their time to our i2i Accelerator – people like Zafar Khan, (CEO, Sofizar/ConstellationCK), Naeem Zamindar, (CEO, Wateen), Monis Rahman, (CEO, Naseeb Networks/Rozee.pk), Parvez Sufi (Founder & MD of Pharmagen), and Roshaneh Zafar (Founder, Kashf Foundation), to name just a few. Babar Rashid Khan, the founder of Uth-Oye! and the Associate VP of Stoneage, ran a brilliant session on marketing and branding, while Asher Hasan, the founder of Naya Jeevan and Sadaffe Abid, the former CEO of Kashf, led informative & dynamic talks on topics like operations and asset protection. The amount of people willing to give their time and energy further showcases not only the immense talent we have in this country (and in the Diaspora) but also how engaged this community would like to be – how our own success is contingent on how much we pay that success forward.
2. Financials, financials, financials. As Khurram Zafar, (CIO of the Lahore Stock Exchange) told me after the Investor event, the financials, cash flow statements, balance sheets, need to be up to par. Regardless whether these start-ups are “social” enterprises or <insert buzzword label here> enterprises, their financials need to be compelling & ready for investor scrutiny. I know that was one of our shortcomings, and moving forward that is something we need to focus on much more, whether that means more targeted sessions or hiring an in-house investment officer for the i2i team.
3. A good pitch makes a good first impression. Some people have great businesses, but come up short in articulating that to a room of investors. First impressions are (almost) everything, and really set the stage for future engagement with an investor. While we started focusing on our pitches before the Investor Gathering, our team realized that this is something that needs to be drilled from the very beginning of each Accelerator.
4. Quality over quantity. The i2i Accelerator will run from September – February each year with up to 10 entrepreneurs. Our next application process will begin in June, with our i2i angels, board members, & team playing a key role in the final selection of the next class. But while it would be cool to double the number of enterprises in the next Accelerator, we would also rather focus on quality over quantity – i.e., 7 or 8 good enterprises versus 10 so-so enterprises. i2i also wants to focus not just on the business, but also on the entrepreneur – are they someone who can take constructive criticism well? Do they have the passion & determination to see their business through? Are they someone who is driven by the why behind their product or service versus just the what? We want entrepreneurs who are hungry, ambitious & willing to persevere through all obstacles, especially in an environment like Pakistan.
5. Trust & transparency is key. Pakistan has an opaque investor environment – tricky to navigate and difficult to engage. There is an enormous trust deficit on both sides of the spectrum – for entrepreneurs who are afraid someone might steal their idea, and for investors who are afraid an entrepreneur will just run away with their money. As an intermediary in this space, it is key that we weave those mechanisms of trust & transparency into every part of our process – from engaging our investors in the final selection of our enterprises, to sharing progress & updates on our enterprises through the course of the Accelerator, to monitoring post-investment. As we continue to build i2i Angels – our angel investor community (Yusuf Jan, the co-founder & EVP of Mixit was our first official Angel, yay!) - it is vital that we not only find good enterprises, but also like-minded investors who are excited and committed to helping us grow this community.

I speak for our team when I say how excited we are to take this journey forward. There is so much work to do, and we cannot do that alone. The community we are building – of investors, mentors, entrepreneurs & partners – are key in this success. We look forward to making that collaborative dent with you.

Special thanks: Umar Saif, the staff (esp. Hafsa & Nabeel) & the incubatees at Plan 9 for their incredible support & hosting us this past weekend, the folks at LUMS (Adil Najam, Ayesha, Arif Butt), Mariam Chughtai, Mannan Amin, Khurram Siddiqi, our kickass filmmaker (stay tuned for the video!), Sonya Rehman, all the investors who made it to the Lahore Investor Gathering, our mentors, our partners, TiE Islamabad, and last but not least – our i2i entrepreneurs.

(Title photo credit: Sonya Rehman)

Kalsoom Lakhani is the Founder/CEO of Invest2Innovate, based in Washington, D.C. She loves traveling, pretending to be a foodie, Jeopardy, and inane discussions about morality in mainstream television shows. If you watch mainstream television shows, you know this amounts to very little discussion.

Tis the season to be thankful.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the U.S. (as opposed to Canada – yes, I can be nuanced), but the spirit of the day can and should be extended all year. It’s a time of reflection, of being thankful for and cognizant of what you have. I, for one, am incredibly grateful for the little things – the moments we often miss as we barrel through life towards some nondescript arbitrarily chosen finish line.

As the holiday season begins and 2013 fast approaches, I strive to be cognizant of what I have in the present without worrying too much about that unknown future. And while I haven’t been the best example of said mindfulness – between my manic travel and work schedule – I aim to be more thankful for the now, in order to be authentic about the future ahead.

At i2i, honesty, transparency, humility & authenticity are values we strive to project as a company as well as internally as an organization. Our amazing team – Salman, Uzair, Susannah & Waqas – as well as our incredibly dedicated board all reflect those values as people and members of this awesome startup family. Below are just some of the things team i2i are thankful for this season:

Our awesome Innovation Manager Uzair is thankful for beautiful endings & exciting beginnings…

Our kick-ass board member Elmira gives thanks for good health, good friends & great love…

And our amazing i2i Biz Dev Fellow Susannah is grateful for adventures!

As for me? The biggest thing life has taught me this year is to slow down. My passion stems from authentic & meaningful relationships, from genuine connections, from community. That’s why I’m the most grateful for my husband (!), family and friends. Oh, and for i2i .

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! What are you thankful for this season?

Kalsoom Lakhani is the Founder/CEO of Invest2Innovate, based in Washington, D.C. She loves traveling, pretending to be a foodie, Jeopardy, and inane discussions about morality in mainstream television shows. If you watch mainstream television shows, you know this amounts to very little discussion.

When we first launched Invest2Innovate a little over a year ago, our model focused on working one-to-one with seed-stage enterprises in Pakistan, providing tailored support – from financial modeling to marketing – to help grow these businesses and connect them to capital. Through this support, we identified common issues many enterprises faced while implementing their models in Pakistan. Moreover, while this approach allowed i2i to work closely with our entrepreneurs, the enterprises weren’t also getting to know each other. Given that i2i’s broader mission is to “promote a better enabling environment for entrepreneurship,” fostering an entrepreneurial community is key.

This past weekend, we launched the i2i Accelerator, a program in which selected i2i enterprises will meet for four two-day workshops (Our first cycle will run from November 2012 to January 2013) on topics ranging from business model development, customer acquisition and marketing to investment strategy, human capital retention and governance structures. They will not only engage with the i2i team and incredible mentors, they will also engage with each other. The accelerator is being hosted at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) Suleman Dawood School of Business (SDSB), a relationship we’re excited to deepen through the course of the program, and we are piloting the program with five awesome i2i enterprises: BLISS (founder, Saba Gul), EcoEnergy Finance (operations director, Jeremy Higgs), Renewable Energy Solutions (founder, Sajjad Haider), Milk’Op (founder, Asim Hussnain), and the Organic Pine Nut Enterprise (founder, Zahoor Khan).

Our entrepreneurs sitting down with i2i Mentor Adnan Afaq

The program will culminate at the end of January with a pitch event that will connect our entrepreneurs to potential funders and investors (ideal members of i2i Angels). i2i will also host a larger event for the public to showcase these entrepreneurs, their stories, and their models.

The i2i Accelerator has been a labor of love for our whole team, and we are so excited to share updates as the program progresses. If successful, we hope to run the Accelerator annually with new cohorts of entrepreneurs. Major props to our Pakistan team Salman Naveed Khan (our Pakistan Director) & Uzair Khan (our Innovation Manager) for all their hard work this past weekend, and many thanks to all our partners (especially LUMS, Harvard’s Pakistan Innovation Network, IBA, P@SHA Fund for Social Innovation, etc.), our amazing mentors & trainers, and our awesome enterprises. It’s going to a wild and crazy ride in the world of entrepreneurship development – stay tuned!

Kalsoom Lakhani is the Founder/CEO of Invest2Innovate, based in Washington, D.C. She loves traveling, pretending to be a foodie, Jeopardy, and inane discussions about morality in mainstream television shows. If you watch mainstream television shows, you know this amounts to very little discussion.

At Invest2Innovate, our mission has been to support the growth of seed-stage enterprises in new markets, beginning first in Pakistan. This is obviously no easy task, and for anyone that has worked or currently works in Pakistan, there is much work to be done.

In the conceptualization, launch and development of i2i, the number one question we are asked is, “How do you find your entrepreneurs?” Since we started small – in an effort to test and prove our model – we previously found our entrepreneurs through word of mouth, through low-cost marketing (*cough* social media *cough*), and because we were so embedded in the space in Pakistan. However, i2i may have started small, but we aim to make a large and measurable impact – supporting high-potential entrepreneurs throughout the country to grow viable business models and access seed-stage capital. In doing so, we hope to further deal flow in Pakistan and allow entrepreneurs with awesome ideas to start, grow, and eventually scale their businesses – making a lasting social or environmental impact as they do so.

We cannot widen our reach and networks without also developing key local partnerships, namely with mission-aligned stakeholders supporting entrepreneurs at various points of the pipeline. In Pakistan, the number of university-level incubators are increasing, and they are providing an important platform for young entrepreneurs to learn key skills and a safe environment to test these ideas. One of the most interesting developments has been at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) - one of Pakistan’s top business schools in Karachi, Pakistan. IBA’s Center for Entrepreneurial Development aims to promote entrepreneurship education at the university-level, a program that culminates in a business plan competition in which students pitch their business ideas to a panel of judges (I recently had the opportunity to judge such a competition, which was incredible). Moreover, IBA CED is not just geared towards students at IBA in Karachi – it targets a consortium of eight universities across Pakistan – including in Quetta, Peshawar and Islamabad. This extension of the program gives students in lesser known and smaller universities access to quality entrepreneurship education, skills, and opportunities.

While these incubators are important in teaching youth initial skills in honing their concept and pitching their enterprises, there is a need to accelerate the best and most high-potential ideas after they complete such programs. The i2i partnership with IBA CED fast tracks the best entrepreneurs in their applications to our i2i Accelerator – a four-month program in which entrepreneurs gain access to curriculum & mentors geared towards the implementation of their businesses – from learning how to build strong governance structures to negotiating term sheets with investors to measuring social and financial impact (we aim to pilot this Accelerator in October 2012). The IBA-i2i partnership aims to further strengthen deal flow for entrepreneurship in Pakistan, a necessary step for growing and scaling viable businesses in these markets.

Another partnership we are excited to announce is with the P@SHA Fund for Social Innovation. P@SHA, a trade association for Pakistan’s IT industry (their president is Jehan Ara), recently launched this initiative to fund ideas that use Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) as a platform for delivery and as a means for empowerment. Thanks to an initial grant from Google, P@SHA has already awarded a number of smaller grants to promising ideas in Pakistan, and have now opened up its application cycle once again. Given that i2i works at the next seed-stage part of the pipeline (we work with entrepreneurs looking for between USD $50K to $200K), this P@SHA partnership is key in feeding the most high-potential ideas to our accelerator, providing these entrepreneurs tailored support but also access to early stage investment or funding.

As we continue to foster and develop these and similar partnerships, one thing is clear: the growth of productive entrepreneurship (versus rent-seeking) can occur with the support of important infrastructure and stakeholders – such as universities, investors, banks, incubators and accelerators. At i2i, we don’t see other players – both current and potential – as competition. We see them as potential partners, as stakeholders attempting to achieve a similar mandate. We are so excited to announce our partnerships with IBA CED & P@SHA and look forward to further these and other similar collaborations.

Kalsoom Lakhani is the Founder/CEO of Invest2Innovate, based in Washington, D.C. She loves traveling, pretending to be a foodie, Jeopardy, and inane discussions about morality in mainstream television shows. If you watch mainstream television shows, you know this amounts to very little discussion.

Growing up there was one phrase that I often heard my parents say whenever they did something wrong or had an unexpected outcome. The phrase ‘tajrobay shod’, transliterated in English as ‘we experienced and we learnt’ always left me with a feel-good, positive attitude about the outcome of my mistakes. Even though I went to Rio +20 with high hopes, mid-way through the conference the feeling of dismay and disappointment kicked in and I was ready to be a part of Bjorn Lomborg crew. It was then, that I remembered the previous childhood lesson of ‘tajrobay shod’ and decided that there was no point in harping about the negative outcomes that most of us predicted anyways. So, why bother getting mad, walking out, banging our heads against the wall – instead I pondered how could I make Rio +20 a positive experience. So in search for lessons from Rio +20, I will be touching upon three issues that in my opinion would have made Rio +20 more effective, especially for the majority group.

Putting a Human Face to Our Challenges

This point was brought up during one of my discussions Alfredo Younis, from Zambuling Institute for Human Transformation at a side-event by Peace Child called ‘Lets get Mad’. The need for identifying important actors that are at the root of the problems that we are trying to solve is key in raising awareness for a particular issue. Putting a human face to something simply means that you identify the actors that are directly involved in the action and hold them accountable for their actions. By ‘putting a human face’ to the abstract concept of ‘green economy’ one can frame an issue in a way, which is more relatable to an individual. As Alfredo Younis put it, we should not demand a green economy, but we should ask for green economist.

Talking about Our Values and Priorities

There needs to be recognition that the problems and challenges that we are facing are a manifestation of broader value systems. We need to move beyond our campaigns for green energy, food security, deforestation etc. to focus on the greater transformation that we need to set the pace for ‘the future we want’. Our campaigns for all these issues are important, however, the majority group and hopefully the citizens of the world do recognize their co-dependence on each other and the need for dialogue about our priorities, actions, and way of life. Working in silos on our campaigns needs to end for the greater recognition for a change in our mindset and actions. We cannot keep on patching holes in the fabric of our society – we need to transform the core of this fabric. We cannot talk about sustainable development without talking about our consumerist and materialist habits. Similarly, we cannot talk about eradication of poverty without talking about unequal distribution of resources and we surely cannot talk about sustainable growth without question ‘growth’ itself.

Lets Do Something About it

So Rio +20 wasn’t a success, what can I do? I want everyone to ask himself or herself this question. Inaction thrives on lack of responsibility and anger – we need to turn our anger into positive lessons and take it upon ourselves to do something that will inspire us to bring social change in whatever way we can. Inspired by Rio +20 (I know this sounds ironic), I decided to grow a venture I started earlier this year called “Ruminize” (ruminize.com) which is going to serve as a story-sharing platform to inspire people and help them form a community of changemakers for local solutions that can go global.

Sana Rafiq is i2i’s Marketing and Social Media Summer Assosiate, pursuing a B.A. in Economics and Political Science at Carleton College, MN.  Her passions include new economics and sustainable development. She is an avid reader and loves discussions on philosophy, the number zero, and complexity.

A few months ago, I received a direct message on Twitter from Tristram Perry, a Public Diplomacy officer at the U.S. Consulate in Almaty, saying, “How would you like to come to Almaty and be a trainer for a Tech Forum?”

Two thoughts ran through my head: 1. I can turn on a computer. Can I train people in that? 2. Kazakhstan. What.

A few seconds later, I wrote back, “Sure! Sign me up!”

The Tech Forum Central Asia (TFCA) occurred between June 14-16 and was a mix of the Civil Alliance Kazakhstan’s SocialCamp and TechCamp – a project initiated by the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to increase the digital literacy of civil society organizations around the world. TechCamps have so far happened all over the world, with this past forum in Almaty being the 11th of this kind. TFCA brought together participants from across Central Asia, Afghanistan & Pakistan for training sessions in topics ranging from low-tech solutions (i.e. mobile technology) to blogging for social good to digital storytelling.

From our solution session on crowdfunding!

I led a number of training & facilitated sessions – one on crowdfunding social ventures to a more general discussion on entrepreneurship, in which participants shared their ventures, presented a challenge, and the group collectively brainstormed and provided solutions. Over the course of two days, participants in my particular group honed in on the issue of trust & transparency as a major obstacle to raising funds for their organizations or ventures, leading us to brainstorm a potential crowdfunding platform that could help address such a pertinent issue. Given that online payment systems like PayPal don’t work in Central Asia (or Pakistan for that matter), a solution that could work for entrepreneurs or activists in the region is key.

Here are some general observations after my inspiring albeit brief time in Almaty last week:

1. The participants & volunteers were some of the most inspiring youth I have met. I went into TFCA knowing very little about the dynamics about Central Asia aside from general current affairs. It was really interesting to note the nuanced differences among the delegations – for example, the participants from Turkmenistan apparently came to Almaty despite receiving government pressure not to attend the conference, making them all the more serious, focused, and committed. Despite these differences, the participants really came together over the course of two days, and I was wowed by the maturity and caliber of the ideas and discourse.
2. The art to working with a translator = speak slowly. I speak apologetically fast, so I had to adjust quickly to make the life of my awesome Russian translator, Ainora, a little easier. Many of the participants felt more comfortable speaking in Russian than in English, and although the stops and starts (speaking, allowing for translation, continue speaking) was a little jarring in the beginning, it did allow for some interesting observations on language barriers, and how pausing can allow us to all listen a little better.
3. Technology is not the end, it’s the means to an end. Granted, this was not an observation I made after TFCA, but it was solidified during my time in Almaty. I often hear about the “sexiness” of tech – how social media, mobile technology, and the internet as a whole can solve the world’s problems. That is only partly true. Tech solutions – both high and low-tech – are important because they can provide access, allowing people to create or leverage existing platforms to achieve a certain aim. But access is only the entry point to the problem, it is not the end. Until we realize that, we can’t actually begin affecting social change in a nuanced way.
4. Collaboration rocks. The other TFCA trainers were amazing, from Samantha Barry of BBC World Vision & BBC World News, to PEPL’s Jim Williams and Facebook’s Elizabeth Linder, to Chris Albon of Frontline SMS. (You can see the full list of trainers here.) The atmosphere at TFCA was dynamic and decidedly “un”-conference-y, providing lots of room for collaboration among the various trainers. I ended up teaming up with Hanny Kasumawati and later Sean Knox for our sessions on crowdfunding (yay, team crowdfunding!), which allowed for a broader and more multifaceted perspective on the topic, and hopefully a better experience for the participants.
5. Just roll with it. As someone who travels a frightening amount (#talesofastartup), I’ve learned that I have the best time when I just relax and roll with the punches. That means not losing my cool over lost luggage (thankfully not on this trip) or a lost voice (unfortunately that did happen on this trip), powering through long hours with little sleep, or even not completely freaking out over accidentally eating horse meat (true story).

TFCA 2012 was amazing, made even more incredible by the participants, my fellow trainers, the organizers, and all the volunteers. Special thanks goes to Angela Baker, Tristram Perry, Noel Dickover, Joe Witters, and everyone at the Civil Alliance Kazakhstan and the State Department/U.S. Mission to Kazakhstan for inviting me, making sure we all got there in one piece, and for making our time in Almaty so incredible and inspiring!

Below are videos of my TED-style talk at TFCA & a wrap-up of day 1 of the conference:

 Kalsoom Lakhani is the Founder/CEO of Invest2Innovate, based in Washington, D.C. She loves traveling, pretending to be a foodie, Jeopardy, and inane discussions about morality in mainstream television shows. If you watch mainstream television shows, you know this amounts to very little discussion.

In a few days, I will be in Rio de Janeiro along with 50,000 other people. Why? For Rio +20, the popular name for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which is taking place from 20-22 June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After the Earth Summit in 1992, some countries adopted an agenda, called Agenda 21, to bring together different stakeholders to one platform in order to rethink our priorities and values towards sustainability and social equity. Twenty years later, the world recognizes the urgency of refocusing on these issues and is returning to Rio to develop a new agenda.

As someone who has eagerly waited to attend this conference, I have high hopes for Rio+20. My hope is mostly anchored in the belief that civil society and citizen sector organizations will bring the issues of social equity and sustainability to the forefront. Critics of the conference see it as another stamped blueprint-generating conference with no or little implementation and delivery impact. However, what distinguishes Rio +20 for me is not the fact that it is the largest UN conference in history, nor that immense amounts of time and money have been put into making the agenda very clear, but rather that the dialogues will lead indirectly to the emergence of a new narrative advocating a change in our priorities.

Be it the conference’s focus on a green economy, poverty eradication, or the institutional framework for sustainable development, at the heart of it is one thing – the need for a new way of thinking, and acting on issues of social equity. The most significant value-added of Rio +20 is that it provides a platform for citizen sector organizations to promote and deliver the rapid transition to an economy that maximizes human wellbeing. Rio +20 catalyzes the ‘global transition’ (originally coined by the new economics foundation) to a new economy centered on the values, priorities, and actions necessary for a sustainable future.

At the heart of the conference and the dialogues will be the most critical question: What about economic growth? Can we grow sustainably and equitably? My take on this is that economic growth was a means to the end of human wellbeing. By focusing on economic growth, we have transformed our means to our end. What is the long forgotten purpose of economic growth? Oh right, prosperity. Now the concept of prosperity without growth is a myth. Tim Jackson calls out the myth in his book, Prosperity Without Growth, where he makes the case for putting a stop to myopic ever-growing demand for economic growth. It is time to reverse this goal displacement and address making sustaining human wellbeing and natural communities the sole priority of economic activity. This transition will require the rise of a new consciousness, as Gus Speth calls it, which will refocus us on the worthwhile goal of ‘human wellbeing’. My hope for Rio +20, is the rise of this new consciousness, not necessarily from the Rio dialogues themselves but more from citizen engagement in the dialogues and the side-events happening in Rio this summer.

Sana Rafiq is i2i’s Marketing and Social Media Summer Assosiate, pursuing a B.A. in Economics and Political Science at Carleton College, MN.  Her passions include new economics and sustainable development. She is an avid reader and loves discussions on philosophy, the number zero, and complexity.

This article first appeared in NextBillion.net on Friday June 1st.

In the last few years, impact investing has been hailed as the next big asset class, with J.P. Morgan & Co referencing it as a $1 trillion investment opportunity. Cue the buzz. Cue “$1 trillion” on a larger-than-life billboard surrounded by blinking lights. Cue bright-eyed social entrepreneurs spurred into motion by that figure, hoping it means much-needed capital for their innovative ventures.

There is no dispute that market-based approaches to long-standing development problems present a significant opportunity. There is also no argument that impact investment can catalyze capital to maximize social and environmental returns. The reality, though, is that this is a fledgling sector with much to prove and with many underlying complexities. The truth is that the road to that “$1 trillion” figure is long and winding.

There is the obvious problem of deal flow. According to an article in The Atlantic this week, “How Financial Innovation Can Save the World,” many BOP-focused businesses “are too young or too risky to be “investable” by investors’ criteria.”

It is a challenging environment for investors, but it’s also exceedingly difficult for entrepreneurs – many of whom are trying to prove innovative models among a hard-to-reach customer base with limited resources. A recent report by the Monitor Group and Acumen Fund, “From Blueprint to Scale,” noted that of over 400 enterprises surveyed in Africa, only 32 percent were commercially viable and had potential for scale, and only 13 percent were actually at scale.

At Invest2Innovate, or i2i, we encounter these issues on a daily basis. We are an intermediary organization that supports seed-stage social enterprises in new and untapped markets, beginning in Pakistan. We aim to strengthen the pipeline and promote deal flow by identifying and vetting high-potential enterprises, providing capacity development to grow these businesses, and connecting them to seed capital to further build these enterprises.

In order to better address the disconnects evident in this sector, we just launched i2i Angels, a community of angel investors committed to investing and supporting innovative and high-growth enterprises in Pakistan. i2i Angels aims to tap the Pakistani Diaspora – from which remittances have quadrupled in the last eight years – as well as local Pakistani networks to channel capital and resources to innovative young entrepreneurs. We aim to foster deep relationships between both angels and our enterprises, believing that trust, transparency, and collaboration are key in growing viable businesses in these markets. i2i Angels will be a key and intrinsic part of our model, helping to strengthen access to capital and the entrepreneurial pipeline in Pakistan, a country in which 60 percent of the population lives under $2 a day, and access to capital and finance are some of the major obstacles facing fledgling entrepreneurs.

There is no magic solution to addressing deal flow or working in high-risk markets. But ultimately we need organizations and innovators willing to take the risk to try different out-of-the-box solutions – tweaking, adjusting, and pivoting as necessary. Organizations like Agora Partnerships, Artemisia and others are also working to address such issues in other markets. In Pakistan, where the Diaspora community is very active and involved in philanthropy, entrepreneurship, and charity, there is a significant opportunity to build and channel resources globally and locally to support innovation and social enterprise. That opportunity was the inspiration behind i2i Angels – a community we aim to foster to promote long-standing impact in the country.

Kalsoom Lakhani is the Founder/CEO of Invest2Innovate, based in Washington, D.C. She loves traveling, pretending to be a foodie, Jeopardy, and inane discussions about morality in mainstream television shows. If you watch mainstream television shows, you know this amounts to very little discussion.