Islamabad, : Philip Morris Pakistan Limited (PMPKL’s) Innovation Lab Program (“Program”) came to an exciting conclusion – 9 teams made up of startups with the support of PMPKL employees participated in the grand finale pitches that took place on the 1st of April at the Movenpick hotel.
Having gone through rigorous Design Thinking and Prototyping sprints, followed by a semi-final pitch and lastly the final pitch, 3 teams stood out from the crowd. The first prize, PKR 800,000 and a trip to London Tech Week, went to team Yadgaar, the second prize, PKR 500,000 went to team Red Retail and the third prize, PKR 250,000 went to team Nucleus. The collaboration with the startup finalists and PMPKL will not end here – as the leadership will now be focusing on creating impact by deploying a chosen few of the proposed solutions with the startups.
Roman Yazbeck, Managing Director at Philip Morris (Pakistan) Limited, expressing his excitement during the opening segment of the finale, said, “This is a big and bold step for Philip Morris (Pakistan) Limited to be venturing into the future by partnering with startups. We hope that these great ideas being pitched before us have the potential to create an impact for the organization’s goal of becoming more forward looking & consumer centric.”
The Program focused on empowering start-up founders & entrepreneurs to collaborate with PMPKL to build tech-based solutions for PMPKL’s challenges. The challenges posed to the startups fell under three categories: consumer centricity, harm reduction and customer care.
The final pitch required the teams to build a prototype of their proposed solution and prove its viability and feasibility to a panel of judges. The panel of judges consisted of members of the leadership from PMPKL and startup ecosystem veterans.
PMPKL is committed to continue its journey of success through shared value creation.
