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Changing the narrative about Pakistan, one room at a time

Pakistan
Collective

A growing series of gatherings — Oxford, Vancouver, Skardu, and beyond — connecting Pakistan's social innovators with global capital, mentorship, and the networks to scale. At its heart: the Summit Fellowship, a 7-day intensive in the Karakoram.

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The Opportunity

Pakistan has extraordinary
founders. The world just
doesn't know it yet.

240 million people. A learning crisis. A hunger crisis. A mental health system that barely exists. A generation of founders has decided not to wait — and they are building real solutions, with real evidence, at real cost. But most of them are invisible to global capital. We're changing that — through a deliberate series of gatherings designed to put Pakistan's social innovators in the rooms that matter.

ChildLife Foundation doctor treating child in emergency room Pakistan
The Constellation

A Growing Series of Gatherings.
One Mission.

From Oxford to Vancouver to Skardu — and wherever the conversation needs to happen next. Each gathering is designed to open doors, build relationships, and change the narrative about Pakistan.

March 2026

Skoll World Forum

Oxford, UK

Friends of Pakistan gathering, anchored by ChildLife Foundation's Skoll Award. RippleWorks-hosted fireside chat with ~50 funders in the room. The goal: warm introductions that funnel energy toward Skardu.

April 2026

TED Conference

Vancouver, Canada

Engaging the Canadian-Pakistani diaspora and global thought leaders. Building bridges between TED's network of changemakers and Pakistan's emerging social innovators.

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June 2026

Summit Fellowship

Skardu, Pakistan

The flagship. 10-12 Pakistani founders matched with 10-12 international funders. Seven days of rigorous mentoring, scale strategy, and Demo Day — with the Karakoram as the backdrop.

Learn more ↓
Each gathering builds on the last — Oxford opens the conversation, Vancouver deepens it, and Skardu makes it impossible to forget.
The Flagship

A 7-Day Residential
Scale Strategy Intensive

The centrepiece of the constellation. In Skardu, founders arrive with working models and leave with a Scale Blueprint — a concrete, defensible strategy for reaching millions — presented live to investors on the final day.

Who attends

Founders post-pilot

Working model. Real evidence. Ambition to go further. Not for organisations still finding their footing — for those ready to think seriously about scale for the first time.

The framework

The Mulago Scale Screen

Four litmus tests every intervention must pass: Good Enough? Big Enough? Cheap Enough? Simple Enough? The most rigorous filter in the sector, refined over 20 years.

The work

Rigorous. Uncomfortable.

Founders stress-test each other's assumptions. Mentors push back hard. Models get rebuilt from the ground up. Seven days of the questions most organisations never get around to asking.

The funders

Partners, not audience

Impact capital providers are present throughout the week — asking the same hard questions as the mentors. By Demo Day, they know every venture in the room.

Demo Day

A Scale Blueprint, live

The week ends with every founder presenting their Scale Blueprint to a room of funders who flew in specifically to act on what they hear. Ten minutes. No safety net.

What comes next

A permanent network

The fellowship does not end when the week does. Every founder joins the Pakistan Scale Collaborative — structured follow-on support and direct access to the funder community.

The Design

7 Days. Rigorous.
Designed for Breakthroughs.

The fellowship is immersive and residential — no phones, no emails during sessions.

Day 1
Sat, Jun 6
Foundations
Arrivals, welcome, and a grounding conversation on Pakistan's context — then straight into a four-hour core session on designing for impact at scale. Ends around a bonfire.
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Day 2
Sun, Jun 7
Design for Impact
The first serious interrogation of who implements your model and who pays for it. Breakout groups pressure-test assumptions. Evening ends with Lightning Talks around a bonfire.
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Day 3
Mon, Jun 8
The Four Enoughs
A two-hour journey to an outdoor location, then a full day applying all Four Enoughs to every venture. Lunch in the open air. Most founders leave with their assumptions thoroughly shaken.
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Day 4
Tue, Jun 9
Rapid Iteration
Founders rebuild their models. Funders arrive and run parallel sessions. By evening both groups are in the same room. Late dinner with Funder Talks on AI and new investment areas.
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Day 5
Wed, Jun 10
Communications
A full day learning to say something true, clearly, in ten minutes. Clear language, narrative structure, pitch architecture. Evening: sightseeing tour and Cultural Night dinner.
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Day 6
Thu, Jun 11
Rehearsal
One-on-one mentor sessions, then a full dress rehearsal. Funder Talks in the afternoon. Closing celebration in the evening.
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Day 7
Fri, Jun 12
Demo Day
Fifteen founders. Fifteen Scale Blueprints. Ten minutes each, in front of a room that has spent the whole week preparing to hear them. Networking lunch, then departures.
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Skardu Valley
35.2972° N, 75.6333° E  ·  elev. 2,438m
The Setting

Skardu Valley,
Northern Pakistan

The valley sits at 2,438 metres above sea level, at the point where the Indus and Shigar rivers meet. It was carved by glaciers over 3.2 million years. The rocks beneath your feet are between 37 and 105 million years old.

In June, the surrounding peaks block the monsoon entirely. While the rest of Pakistan swelters, Skardu sits under clear skies at 15–25°C. The air is clean. The silence is extraordinary. There is nowhere else in Pakistan quite like it.

The mountains
Four of the world's five highest peaks are within this district — K2, Broad Peak, Gasherbrum I & II. More 8,000m summits than anywhere else on earth.
The climate
In June, temperatures sit between 15–25°C. The surrounding peaks block the monsoon entirely. While the rest of Pakistan swelters, Skardu is clear skies and cool mountain air.
Who is behind this

A group of people who kept
showing up in the same rooms.

This did not start as a programme. It started as a pattern — the same people, in different cities, finding each other at the intersection of Pakistan, scale, and impact. Eventually they decided to stop meeting by accident and start building rooms of their own.

Skoll Awardee
Dr. Ahson Rabbani
ChildLife Foundation

Runs 13 pediatric emergency rooms and 300+ telemedicine centres across Pakistan, treating 1.7 million children a year — free of charge. ChildLife Foundation's recent Skoll Award is the anchor for the Oxford gathering, and Ahson brings to the fellowship the clearest proof that scale in Pakistan is not theoretical.

Ex-Skoll Foundation MD
Nadir Shams
Integral Assets

Former Managing Director at the Skoll Foundation, with a career spanning One Acre Fund, Spring Impact, and Dalberg. Nadir is managing the Oxford invite list and leading funder outreach — connecting the dots between the world's most effective impact funders and Pakistan's best-kept secrets.

Framework & Curriculum
Kevin Starr
Mulago Foundation
Learn more →

Founder of the Mulago Foundation — one of the most rigorous impact-first philanthropies in the world. Twenty years funding scalable solutions for the very poor. His Scale Screen framework is the intellectual backbone of the Skardu fellowship. More optimistic about Pakistan than anyone in the room. Also the man who climbed Trango Towers back in '95.

Programme Design
Sarah Farooq
Acumen

Former COO of Taleemabad, where she helped scale EdTech to millions of Pakistani children. Now oversees Acumen's global fellowship programme across all regions. She is designing the Skardu programme — drawing on both the Mulago methodology and her own experience building fellowships that actually change how founders think.

Prospective Cohort

Founders Under Consideration

A tentative, indicative selection of Pakistani founders whose work has been evaluated against Mulago Foundation criteria — a priority problem, a scalable solution, and an organization that can deliver. This list is preliminary and subject to change as the fellowship takes its final shape. Click any card to explore their work.

Fintech
Halima Iqbal
Oraan
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Halima Iqbal
Oraan
Pakistan's first women-led fintech digitising savings committees for 600,000+ underserved women.
Visit Oraan ↗
Workforce Dev
Wardah Noor
xWave
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Wardah Noor
xWave
Training underprivileged youth in IT skills. Acumen Angels Awardee. Selected for TED 2025.
Visit xWave ↗
Food Systems
Musa Aamir
Rizq
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Musa Aamir
Rizq
Network of social businesses targeting SDG Goal #2: Zero Hunger across 23 Pakistani cities.
Visit Rizq ↗
Agriculture
Osama Shahid
SobyAgro
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Osama Shahid
SobyAgro
Affordable farm machinery making modern agriculture accessible for small landholders.
Visit SobyAgro ↗
Health
Maryam Mustafa
Awaaz-e-Sehat
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Maryam Mustafa
Awaaz-e-Sehat
AI voice assistant helping community health workers create electronic maternal health records.
Visit Awaaz-e-Sehat ↗
Special Ed
Muhammad Waqas
WonderTree
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Muhammad Waqas
WonderTree
Augmented reality games making therapy and special education effective and joyful for children.
Visit WonderTree ↗
Access to Justice
Haya Emaan Zahid
Legal Aid Society
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Haya Emaan Zahid
Legal Aid Society
Expanding access to legal services for prisoners, women, and underserved communities nationwide.
Visit Legal Aid Society ↗
Accessibility
Azima Dhanjee
ConnectHear
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Azima Dhanjee
ConnectHear
Sign language tech bridging Pakistan's deaf community to education, healthcare, and opportunity.
Visit ConnectHear ↗
EdTech
Maira Siddiqui
Chiraagh
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Maira Siddiqui
Chiraagh
EdTech platform focused on measurable learning outcomes at scale across Pakistan.
Visit Chiraagh ↗
Mental Health
Talha Rehman
BeMe
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Talha Rehman
BeMe
Digital mental health platform designed and built specifically for Pakistani youth.
Visit BeMe ↗
Health
Abdullah Bin Abbas
Saving9
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Abdullah Bin Abbas
Saving9
Improving health outcomes through innovative delivery models for underserved populations.
Visit Saving9 ↗
Environment
Hashim Akbar
ReUpCycle
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Hashim Akbar
ReUpCycle
Circular economy solutions tackling Pakistan's plastic and waste management challenge.
Visit ReUpCycle ↗
Microfinance
Roshaneh Zafar
Kashf Foundation
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Roshaneh Zafar
Kashf Foundation
Pakistan's first women-focused microfinance institution — 5.5M+ loans to women micro-entrepreneurs across 200+ branches. Pakistan's oldest and largest women-focused MFI.
Visit Kashf Foundation ↗
Livelihoods
Hamza Iqbal
Ihsaas Trust
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Hamza Iqbal
Ihsaas Trust
Cart-based micro-business models for Karachi's urban poor — turnkey path to self-employment with training and community accountability.
Visit Ihsaas Trust ↗
Guest Speakers & Mentors

Learning from Those
Who've Done It

You cannot think about scale in the abstract. You need people in the room who have actually done it — who know what breaks, what holds, and what it takes to cross the threshold from promising to unstoppable.

Pakistani Speakers
Sara Saeed KhurramSehat Kahani
Co-founded Pakistan's largest telemedicine platform connecting rural women to qualified doctors through lady health workers.
EntrepreneurHealth Tech
Roshaneh ZafarKashf Foundation
Founded Pakistan's first microfinance institution for women in 1996 — 5.5M loans issued, 200+ branches, the country's largest women-focused MFI.
Social EntrepreneurMicrofinanceWomen's Empowerment
Sarah FarooqAcumenConfirmed
Former COO of Taleemabad, scaling EdTech to 10M children in Pakistan; now oversees the global Acumen Fellowship program across all regions.
OperatorEdTechFellowship Design
Nadir ShamsEx Skoll FoundationConfirmed
Former Managing Director at Skoll Foundation; career spanning One Acre Fund, Spring Impact, and Dalberg.
PhilanthropySocial InnovationScale
Dr. Ahson RabbaniChildLife FoundationConfirmed
Skoll Award winner. CEO running 13 pediatric emergency rooms and 300+ telemedicine centers across Pakistan, treating 1.7M children annually — free of charge.
Nonprofit LeaderPediatric Health
Monis RahmanRozee.pkTo Be Invited
Pioneered online recruitment in Pakistan with Rozee.pk, now serving 10M professionals and 65,000 employers; Forbes Top Asian Businessman.
EntrepreneurTechFuture of Work
Dr. Sania NishtarEhsaas / GaviTo Be Invited
Architect of Pakistan's Ehsaas social protection program, reaching 15M households; cardiologist, senator, and now CEO of Gavi.
PolicymakerPublic HealthSocial Protection
Global Practitioners
Kevin StarrMulago FoundationConfirmed
Founder of the Mulago Foundation — directs one of the most rigorous impact-first philanthropies in the world, funding scalable solutions to meet the basic needs of the very poor. Also leads Big Bang Philanthropy and the Rainer Arnhold Fellows Program.
PhilanthropyScaleImpact Investing
Capital Partners

The Funder Room

The funders who attend are not there to observe — they are actively looking for Pakistan opportunities and have cleared their calendars to find them.

Kevin Starr Confirmed
Mulago Foundation
LinkedIn
Mubarik Imam Confirmed
WhatsApp / Independent
LinkedIn
Osman Rashid To Be Invited
Chegg Co-founder / SOAR STEM Schools / Khoj Resorts
LinkedIn
Mudassir Sheikha To Be Invited
Careem / Uber
LinkedIn
Joe Exner To Be Invited
Steele Foundation
Ayesha Khan To Be Invited
Acumen Fund
LinkedIn
Doug Galen To Be Invited
RippleWorks
Ben Payne & Becca To Be Invited
Ex-Skoll / RippleWorks
Rehan Jalil To Be Invited
Securiti AI / Serial Founder

* Final funder list subject to confirmation. Status chips indicate current outreach progress.

Pakistan's next generation of scale organisations is being built right now. Be in the room.

A growing series of gatherings — one mission: to put Pakistan's social innovators in the rooms that matter. Whether you're a founder, a funder, or someone who knows someone who should be here.

Oxford  ·  March
Skoll World Forum
Friends of Pakistan gathering + RippleWorks fireside
Vancouver  ·  April
TED Conference
Diaspora engagement + global thought leadership
Skardu  ·  June 6–12
Summit Fellowship
The flagship — 7-day scale intensive at the foot of the Karakoram
Get in Touch →

If you know someone who should be in the room, please share this with them.