CENTIN-UMT joined hands with DICE Foundation and organized an entrepreneurial competition “UMT DICE Virtual Competition 2019” on 12th December 2019, at UMT Lahore.
DICE Foundation is a non-profit organization registered and working in Michigan, USA and it aims to foster innovation & entrepreneurship culture and inculcate the idea of taking Entrepreneurship as a career thus making it a part of the nation’s DNA.
The idea behind this event was to motivate academia, industry, entrepreneurs and expatriates to come to a common platform to incorporate and stage innovations & technologies, share knowledge and further collaborate with each other to add their share in the masses and community development in uplifting the economy of Pakistan via innovative products which are necessary for the economic development of the country.
Honorable Director-General UMT, Mr. Abid H.K Shirwani, graced the occasion as Chief Guest. In his address speech, he appreciated the participants for daring to think out of the box and coming up with ideas of their own and also encouraged them to disrupt the notions of typical career choices. He further shared long-lasting lessons from the ancient and modern world to encourage the participants. His speech proved explicitly insightful for the audience. Worthy Director Mr. Abid H.K Shirwani applauded Director CENTIN Mr. Muhammad Yasir Amjad and team CENTIN for making UMT DICE 2019 extravagant. Moreover, he praised CENTIN for organizing UMT DICE 2019 which allowed the participating teams to convert their creative ideas into value-adding solutions.
The business plans were evaluated by honorable jury comprised of area experts including Air Commodore Mr. Khalid Chishti (R) (Sitara e Imtiaz & Sitara e Basalt), Mr. Zeeshan Shoukat (Founder EZEE ENERGY, Blue Cubes Pvt Ltd and Director Undergraduate Program SBE, UMT), Ms. Zarene Zuberi (Country Manager, Social Innovation Lab), Mr. Syed Taimoor Hassan (Manager BIC, Foundation University Islamabad), and Mr. Asif Bashir Almani (Manager BIC National Textile University, Faisalabad).
Startup Details:
The competition was opened only for UMT community and CENTIN received an overwhelming response from the audience. Total 26 startup teams competed in this event. The participation from the Institute of Aviation Studies (IAS) has been very prominent as 31% ideas were presented from this department. Whereas the participation from the School of Systems and Technology (SST), School of Engineering (SEN) and School of Health Sciences (SHS) has been 19%, 15% and 12% respectively. The teams from other departments of UMT also participated in this event, which included School of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), School of Commerce and Accountancy (SCA), School of Business and Economics (SBE) and UMT Sialkot Campus. The participation from these disciplines has been 8%, 8%, 4% and 4% respectively. Whereas a large number of UMTians, aspiring entrepreneurs, UMT faculty functionaries and academicians attended this event.
Representation of Startup Teams from UMT Schools/Institutes in UMT DICE VIC 2019
(Business Plan Competition)
The Competition Concluded with the Following Prizes to the Winning Teams:
- First Prize: The team of “Smart Mirror Labs” won UMT DIC VIC 2K19 and was awarded a cash prize of rupees 50,000 along with shields to the team.
- Second Prize: The team of “Aabshar” was the first runner up of this competition and was awarded a cash prize of rupees 20, 000 along with shields to the team.
- Third Prize: The team of “Eco Friendly Textile Reactive Printing of Cotton Fabric” was the 2nd runner up and was awarded a cash prize of rupees 15, 000 along with shields to the team.
We congratulate the winning contestants and wish all other participating teams luck in their future endeavors. We also encourage participation from the rest of the school/departments and institutes in upcoming events. In the last, we are highly grateful for the cooperation from OCM, UMT TV, OCMS, OEM and other departments whose timely support notably contributed to the success of this event.