Bir Bahadur Khatri

🤝 𝐀 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐈 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 Incredible news from Islamabad — the official launch of the 𝐆𝐎 𝐀𝐈 𝐇𝐮𝐛 & 𝐆𝐎 𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐇𝐮𝐛 marks a powerful step forward in building a shared innovation bridge between 𝐒𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐢 𝐀𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐚 and 𝐏𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧. This initiative connects talent, infrastructure, and opportunity — aligning with 𝐒𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐢 𝐀𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐚’𝐬 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝟐𝟎𝟑𝟎 and 𝐏𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧’𝐬 rapidly growing digital ecosystem. With 17 partnerships signed across strategic, government, and private sectors, the foundation has been laid for an AI innovation corridor that will empower people, strengthen industries, and unlock sovereign compute capacity for the region. As someone who has worked closely across both ecosystems, I’m truly proud to see this collaboration take shape — linking Riyadh, Islamabad, and Silicon Valley through a common vision for the future of AI. Kudos to Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of IT and Telecommunication Pakistan, Special Investment Facilitation Council, Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), Shaza Khawaja, Yahya Al-Mansour, Abdullah Alswaha, Mostafa Elamin ,MBA,CPM®, and all the partners driving this mission forward. The speed, clarity, and shared purpose behind this project are inspiring. This is just the beginning of a new AI era — powered by collaboration, trust, and vision. 🌍✨ Learn more 👉 www.goaihub.ai #GOAIHub #MCIT #MoITT #SIFC #PSEB #SpeedOfGO #SaudiArabia #Pakistan #AI #Vision2030 #Innovation #Partnerships #DigitalTransformation #TechEcosystem

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🚀 Last weekend, I had the incredible opportunity to evaluate Final Year Project (FYP) ideas at COMSATS University Islamabad - and wow, I was blown away! 💡 15 projects. Every single one was AI-heavy. The future is truly here, and it’s inspiring to see students thinking this big. It also took me back to my own university days, when the ideas were much simpler. This new generation is dreaming bigger - and it’s amazing to witness. I tried to be more of a mentor instead of an evaluator, sharing an industry perspective on turning these ideas into reality. ✨ My core advice to students: Dream big, but build smart. Here’s what I suggested: 1️⃣ Prove Technical Feasibility First – Make sure your idea is buildable, not just a paper concept. 2️⃣ Start with an MVP – Break your project into milestones and aim for a simple, core-functional version first. 3️⃣ Iterate & Enhance – Once the MVP is strong, add supporting features step by step. An idea is only as strong as its execution. With a smart, phased approach, these groundbreaking concepts can truly come to life. 👏 Huge respect to the students for their creativity and ambition - the future of tech looks bright! 🙌 Kudos to COMSATS University Islamabad & Muhammad Rashid Mukhtar sb for creating opportunities that bring industry perspectives closer to students! #AI #Innovation #TechLeadership #COMSATS #IndustryAcademia

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❓Did Pakistan 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 need 30-minute groceries when every street already has a kiryana store? And were fixed-route shuttles the ride-hailing revolution commuters were waiting for when Careem, Uber and Bykea were on every phone? This week we revisited Airlift Technologies's dramatic rise and fall—and the lessons are louder than ever for founders building in frontier markets. 🚦 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴  1. 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗸𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁-𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝘁 – Quick commerce solved convenience, not a burning pain, and the willingness to pay a premium never materialised at scale. Meanwhile the bus-hailing model captured office-hour commuters but collapsed when Covid emptied roads.  2. 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 > 𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗰𝘀 – 30 + dark stores, subsidised fares and free delivery burned through an $𝟴𝟱 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 war chest in just 11 months.  3. 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴-𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 – When the 2022 global VC slowdown hit, the next cheque never arrived and operating cash ran dry overnight.   4. 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 – Inventory write-offs, routing inefficiencies and a hastily launched South-Africa expansion piled costs onto a young org still building processes.  5. 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 – For rides, international incumbents already owned the demand side; for groceries, kiryana shops and emerging players kept prices lower than a VC-subsidised model could sustain.  🛠 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 ✅ Validate desperation, not desire—talk to users until the problem screams. ✅ Scale in concentric circles; nail one city’s unit economics before jumping continents. ✅ Discounts are a tactic, not a business model; build for margin from day one. ✅ Raise smart money, but design scenarios where you can outlive a funding winter. Airlift dared big and moved fast—attributes we admire. But ambition without disciplined learning is a rocket with no landing gear. Let’s build startups that listen harder, iterate smaller, and earn sustainability 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 valuation. 🚀 Read the full article here 👇 https://lnkd.in/eCcxJgvW #StartupLessons #ProductMarketFit #QuickCommerce #RideHailing #Pakistan #Airlift #Entrepreneurship #VC #Growth #Careem #Uber #Airlift #Validation #Startup #Funding #VCBacked #MVP #Seed #VentureCapital #ECommerce #Business

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24 hours. 1 problem. Countless bugs. Endless learning. Just when things weren't adrenaline enough: This weekend, we decied to pull an all-nighter at the First National Agentic AI Hackathon in Pakistan, organized by Innovista, Google for Developers, Systems Limited and others. And guess what? We came out as Runner-up Champions! 🥈. The problem we tackled: Citizens in developing countries often struggle to access housing, healthcare, and social benefits because systems are fragmented and complex. Our challenge was to build a Multi-agent Citizen Service Navigator that could guide people through eligibility, applications, and official communication - even in low-bandwidth or offline scenarios. Our solution: خدمت مرکز (Khidmat Markaz) - a transparent, autonomous assistant to help citizens apply for services faster and with less hassle. A system designed to cut office visits from 3–5 down to just 1. So we went all in. Instead of sticking to familiar frameworks like CrewAI or OpenAI Agent SDK, we decided to experiment with Google ADK. (Spoiler: it wasn’t smooth. Documentation was sparse, agent handover wasn’t clear, and things broke when we least expected. But that’s where hackathons shine - you get to break things and learn fast) Some key takeaways: 1/ Hackathons aren’t pretty - things break, but that’s where the real learning happens.     2/ Multi-agent systems are powerful, but managing state and handovers is where the magic (and the pain) lives.     3/ Trying new tools under pressure forces you to think differently - and that’s the whole point.     Kudos to the organizers for smooth hackathon, and of course, hats off to my amazing teammates: Abdullah I., Hammad Saeedi, Mohsin Idrees & Bilal Akbar. Here’s to more experiments, more broken things, and more learnings. 🔥

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Pakistan’s own Urdu ChatGPT, “Qalb,” has been officially launched under the leadership of Pakistani student Taimoor Hassan, currently studying in the United States. Recognized as the world’s largest Urdu Large Language Model, Qalb has been trained on nearly 2 billion tokens and benchmarked against international evaluation frameworks. Designed for over 230 million Urdu speakers, the AI model aims to transform education, businesses, digital services, and AI innovation in Pakistan and beyond. #Pakistan #virałpost #BreakingNews #chatgpt #artificialintelligence

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