The Shazia Marri IBA event recognizes the important role that women business owners play in society and spotlights the struggles that women face in all aspects of life.
KARACHI: On March 15 in Karachi, the Aman Center for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) at IBA Karachi hosted the summit “Unlocking the Potential of Women Entrepreneurs” in association with the Click Sindh Investment Department to commemorate International Women’s Day. The summit attempted to address the difficulties and limitations that women-owned businesses, particularly those in Karachi, faced.
Shazia Marri, the federal minister for reducing poverty and ensuring social security as well as the head of the Benazir Income Support Program, attended the ceremony as the chief guest. The panellists included Misbah Naqvi, a Kauffman fellow and co-founder of i2i Ventures, Tara Uzra Dawood, CEO of Women Fund, Nadia Patel Gangjee, founder of Sheops and founder and CEO of Femprow, Saeeda Mandiwala, CEO of Toni & Guy and CEO of Spa Ceylon. IBA QEC Director Dr. Saima Husain moderated the event, which was sponsored by Aman CED IBA Director Dr. Lalarukh Ejaz.
The ceremony was launched by Dr. S. Akbar Zaidi, Executive Director, IBA Karachi, with a stirring speech. He emphasised once more how crucial it is for women to work. He claimed that because women were denied opportunities, they lagged behind men in the labour field in terms of participation. This was how he explained the causes of the gender gap in the workforce. “Empowering women” means giving them access to resources like finance and education that they have previously been denied.
Shazia Marri started out by talking about how women have overcome historical obstacles and tribulations to achieve their full potential. We’ve managed to establish ourselves, she claimed. She praised women for their efforts in closing the gender wage gap but noted that there is still much work to be done before economic development can be made by “strategizing our population”.
Women must use difficult means to assert their rights since they encounter different and more difficult barriers than men. Women are forced to demonstrate and shout demands for their rights. Shazia Marri backed up female protesters.
Women business owners from various professions discussed their personal journeys, obstacles they faced, and factors that helped them become change-makers. Nadia Patel Gangjee outlined the myriad issues that working women and female entrepreneurs encounter in underdeveloped nations, such as salary inequalities, a lack of technological literacy, easy access to capital, and social conventions.
In his final remarks, Mr. Syed Qasim Naveed Qamar, Special Assistant to the Chief Minister on Investment and Public Private Initiatives, emphasised the crucial role women play in the workforce and the importance of maximising their involvement by addressing threats. “The aim is to identify every one of those difficulties and deal with them,”
The vote of thanks was given by Dr. Lalarukh Ejaz, director of Aman CED IBA. She thanked the summit’s principal guest for taking the time to travel by plane from Islamabad and for enlightening the audience with her stirring remarks. She also expressed gratitude to the renowned panellists, stating that they provided Pakistani women with much-needed role models. She also discussed how IBA had evolved over time and how several of its departments and centres were now run by women.
