Top 10 winners of female youth pitch competition announced

By Farzana Chaudhry, Lahore Pakistan
LAHORE: The Women Development Department (WDD) Punjab has announced the top 10 winners of the “Entrepreneurial Female Youth Pitch Competition” held at the Maryam Nawaz Women Complex, Jubilee Town, under an initiative aimed at promoting women-led entrepreneurship and economic empowerment.
A total of 437 business ideas were registered through an online process for the competition. During the first phase, participants competed at the university level, after which 59 ideas were shortlisted for departmental evaluation. Following scrutiny by the WDD committee, 49 participants qualified for the provincial finale, including 15 physical and 34 online presentations.
The competition featured business ideas related to digital and IT solutions, agri-business, creative and cultural industries, health and wellness, eco-friendly businesses and social enterprises. Projects were evaluated on innovation, sustainability, marketing strategy, revenue model, social impact and scalability.
The top 10 winners included Aana Shahid of University of the Punjab for “Relief.pk”, Raemeen Awan of University of Lahore for “Clay Bloom”, Maria Qayyum of Fatima Jinnah Women University for “Green Plastic”, Mishal Attique of University of Engineering and Technology Lahore for “Revive Plastic”, Javiera Javed of The Islamia University of Bahawalpur for “Knitto Store”, and Mah Noor Arif of University of Central Punjab for “BakeTheory”.
Other winning projects included Fatima Abbas’s “LIFE SAVING” suicide prevention initiative, Laiba Batool’s pneumonia screening system, Faiza Amir Khakwani’s “MangoRenew – Zero-Waste Mango Solutions”, and Misbah’s organic venture “Glowana”.
Parliamentary Secretary WDD Saadia Taimoor said the programme was part of the department’s vision to provide women equal opportunities in social and economic development while promoting leadership skills among young female students and strengthening women’s economic inclusion through entrepreneurship.
Secretary WDD Saman Rai said students enrolled from the second semester onwards in any discipline were eligible to participate in the programme, which aimed to enable women to contribute towards economic growth, job creation and community development in Punjab. Under the programme, winners will receive mentorship in Lahore, while participants will be awarded seed funding ranging from Rs500,000 to Rs1 million.