Journey:  

- "I started the 8-week long engagement with the idea of a mobile library. Though I felt the idea had real potential and was already operational in certain cities of Pakistan. However, when I went out into the community and met plausible customers, I realized that school principals surprisingly do not consider library a need, and believe that it would require a learning environment at home for students to be able to take up books and read. They did mention that they would want leadership development opportunities for their students through extra-curriculars. Hence with Co-Creator, I started drafting and redrafting the idea of a hub where different leadership development activities can be organized for students of schools in that particular vicinity. I was able to bring industry experts on board to have them as project mentors, and finalize a pitch deck to sell off to customers. I approached two schools and both of them signed up for the project. I am leaving the program with the idea of collective impact hubs to deliver collective impact by connecting schools, organizations and programs, facilitating exchange of ideas and learning and reach 1,00,000 students...."

 

Co-founder: "Zevae is a wonderful mentor. His exposure to projects round the world allows one a greater depth of vision and pushed me to explore newer ideas and concepts. Also, he was as invested, sometimes one feels even more, as I was in the project, and hence I had a constant support who was working hard with me in defining and redefining the idea and refining its details. Sometimes our calls went way above the scheduled times and we kept on working, so he was totally supportive in that. Also, Zaheer is a very positive person, and helped me to keep my spirits high even when the initial idea did not hold ground with the possible customers and I had to move onto a new idea. Also, he has a knack of keeping people from getting bogged down into the problems and take them out from that to follow a structured path. So, there were times, when I got flustered or wanted to jump quickly to next steps, he brought me back to the structured program. One tends get too much concerned in the specifics of program design, so its important that someone refocus them on first testing their hypotheses with the intended clients. I am personally not that good in marketing, but I felt through his support and business insights, we were able to build a solid and convincing proposal to be presented to clients...."

 

Co.Creator Program: This is a very structured program leading you one by one through the steps of defining the idea and then building it up into a credible proposal. Teach For Pakistan, during our recruitment, had a mandatory community development project to be carried out by fellows. 2011 fellows received an intensive 3-day long training for that. That training was one-time and mostly focused on budgetary details etc. I believe Co-Creator program can be the best substitute for that, as it provides ongoing mentorship rather than any one time training. This ongoing validation and redefining of ideas is very crucial for any community project or start-up. I believe Co- Creator Program is best suited for fellows who have just completed their first year, and are on summer break, and want to do a community project. This is the perfect point in their fellowship when they have acquired the requisite insights about the community and have settled in their fellowship to be able to take on other challenges...."

 

Next 8 week goals: Week 1: 13th April – 19th April: Get 5 schools to sign up for the project. Week 2: 21st April – 26th April: Share it with Teach For Pakistan fellows. Week 3: 28th April – 3rd May: Share it with Karachi Youth Initiative / Other plausible investors. Week 4: 5th May – 10th May: Finalize the detailed written proposal to be shared with Karachi Youth Initiative according to their guidelines along with a co-fellow. Week 5: 12th May – 17th May: Finalize the budget to be shared with Karachi Youth Initiative according to their guidelines along with a co-fellow. Week 6: 19th May – 24th May: Get schools signed up for pilot. Week 7: 26th May – 31st May: Arrange logistics etc. for pilot. Week 8: 2nd June – 7th June: Execute a one-week pilot program.