Islamabad December 2020: GITEX Technology Week serves as home to tech startups. Amid visa and COVID-19 restrictions, the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication successfully pitched 3 startups from Ignite NIC Program.

Among the participating startups – WALEE, Pakistan’s largest and fastest growing influencer and social commerce platform, that enables businesses to discover, contract, collaborate and pay influencers who market and sell for them at scale. Today, 50,000+ influencers and businesses across 250+ cities are on Walee.pk. SE Drop (Save Every Drop) is another startup showcased at the mega event, offering two product lines – one: wastewater recycling systems to deal with water scarcity and second: natural, alcohol and chemical-free disinfectants. While the third startup, encore pay is a fintech which provides a digital payments platform to financial institutions including banks, telecoms and payment networks.

All three Ignite NIC Program startups attracted interest from the public and private entities. Walee discussed with major global and regional brands, PR, social and digital agencies to implement scalable solutions for a 2021 rollout via www.walee.ae. SE Drop attracted interest from Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), Dubai Municipality, Fujairah Municipality, UAE and private investors from Bahrain and Turkey for the collaboration in wastewater recycling management systems. GITEX-veteran, encore pay, reconnected with clients and partners from Middle East and Africa, and also received positive traction for its product suite from leads in new locations, as well as VC interest.

Notwithstanding the pandemic, GITEX 2020 was the only major in-person technology event to go live this year with more than 1,200 innovative tech enterprises, startups and government entities from 60 countries; over 200 of the most active investors and VCs from 30 countries; and over 350 speakers from 30 countries.