Date: March 15, 2022

Time: 11:15 am

Venue: AHA Auditorium

The session is mandatory for All final Year Students & Research Students.

Details about the session

K-Electric (KE) and INNOVentures Global (Pvt) Ltd will conduct the session  to inform regarding commencement of KE 7/11+ Innovation Challenge. The KE 7/11+ Innovation Challenge is a first of its kind event in Pakistan’s utility market designed for entrepreneurs, startups, researchers, and university students from all across the country (and the world) to accelerate innovation in the energy / power sector and other allied businesses that are of intersectional interest to KE.

The KE 7/11+ Innovation Challenge seeks to invite ideas, products, and solutions that focus on key themes of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

·         SDG 7: Access to Affordable, Reliable, Sustainable, & Modern Energy for All

·         SDG 11: Sustainable, Inclusive, Safe, & Resilient Cities and Communities, and

·         Plus: Innovate using Technology to bring Enterprise Agility in Utility Functions, such as customer service, supply chain & logistics, and smart infrastructure & digitization

In addition, the participants may also address specific Challenge Statements identified by KE in the areas of Customer Experience and Operational Excellence. The identified challenge statements are listed below (further details available on website):

Customer Experience

·         Challenge Statement 1: Efficient Fault Detection

·         Challenge Statement 2: Swift Fleet Mobilization

·         Challenge Statement 3: Agile Customer Communication

·         Challenge Statement 4: Pre-emptive Fault Prevention

·         Challenge Statement 5: Dynamic Use of KE’s Infrastructure

Operational Excellence

·         Challenge Statement 6: Predictive Demand Planning

·         Challenge Statement 7: Compact Vehicle Design

·         Challenge Statement 8: Realtime Information Management

·         Challenge Statement 9: Meter Reading Automation

·         Challenge Statement 10: Sustainable Land Utilization

KE has powered Karachi – Pakistan’s business and commercial hub – for over one hundred years. Through a network spanning across 6,500 square kilometers, KE supplies power to all residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural areas that fall under the city’s ambit and beyond. KE is the only vertically-integrated power utility in Pakistan managing all three key areas – Generation, Transmission and Distribution – of producing and delivering energy to customers.

As Pakistan’s leading and only privately run utility, it is imperative that KE continues to bring about innovation in its operations. Moreover, in line with global technology and market changes, KE looks to embrace the oncoming advancement in utility operations.
As a forward-looking utility, KE embraces innovation and looks to embed it in its organizational functions by providing a platform for problem solving. KE seeks to engage with entrepreneurs, startups, researchers, and university students to identify talent and ideas that could address the challenges faced by Pakistan’s energy market, while also recognizing opportunities for innovation in this sector.

The top 3 participants of the KE 7/11+ Innovation Challenge will receive a collective sum of PKR 3 Million (PKR 1.5 Million, PKR 750,000, and PKR 750,000 respectively) as prize money.

Participants may also be provided with potential product development funding, potential B2B contracts & investment, mentoring and onboarding support and more.

Team invite all faculty members, researchers, and students to participate in the KE 7/11+ Innovation Challenge by applying on website: http://innovation.ke.com.pk before March 26, 2022.

For Queries:  innovation@ke.com.pk

About the Speaker:

Dr. Athar Osama is a science and innovation policy advisor and the Managing Partner of INNOVentures Global (Pvt.) Ltd and the Founder/CEO of Pakistan Innovation Foundation and an Advisor to Higher Education Commission of Pakistan.   
Dr. Osama was until recently the Member (S&T, ICT, and Higher Education) of the Planning Commission, Government of Pakistan. At the Planning Commission, he spearheaded creation of 6 National Centers in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation, Big Data and Cloud Computing, Cyber Security, Applied Mathematics, and Animal Genomics. Athar also spearhead the effort for the approval of the first ever National Startup Initiative, 21st Century Global Skills Initiative, PhD and Post-Doc Programmes, among others.    At PIF, Dr. Osama has designed and run many innovation programmes in areas of manufacturing innovation, agricultural and rural innovation, civic innovation, and educational innovation, among others. PIF has also spun off, the National STEM School, a series of experiential hands-on science bootcamps for 13-20 years olds.

Athar was the Director of Middle East and Asia for Angle Plc. – a UK-based technology commercialization consulting, management, and venture capital firm. Dr. Osama is the Fellow of the New York-based World Technology Network (WTN) and a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. He holds a Bachelors in Aeronautics and a PhD in Science and Innovation Policy from RAND Graduate School in Santa Monica, CA.