PLAN9 Houses Six Hardware Driven Technology Startups

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

 

Plan9 – Punjab Information Technology Board’s Tech Incubator is currently in its 11th cycle of incubation. Having graduated over 150 technology startups since its establishment in 2012, the Plan9 startup portfolio consists of innovative and enterprising solutions leveraging technology to solve problems pertaining to the Pakistani market.

To scout for startups, Plan9 conducts its flagship event – The Launchpad every six months. The Launchpad, a pitching competition is held over the 3 major cities – Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad to scout for and select startups from all over Pakistan for the sought after six month incubation program.

With the global entrepreneurial ecosystem accelerating at unprecedented rates, Plan9 witnesses a varied batch of innovation every cycle. The 11th cohort is no different. Comprising of an interesting mix of new and diverse innovation and technology, the 11th cycle startups are working on varying domains.

Interestingly, this time around the Hardware space has quite a presence as Plan9 is housing 6 hardware technology driven ideas. Read below for a snapshot of the products these Hardware startups are working on:

1. Smart Mirror: The world is moving towards being smart and this startup is all set to create a smart mirror that displays widgets such as weather, messages, social media apps and emails directly from smart phones.

2. JF LABS: AgriTech is a major market in Pakistan and JF LABS are creating a drone to enhance the efficiency of the cultivation process.

3. Water9: This startup has created a water filtering mechanism that uses the power of ozone in addition to reverse osmosis to eradicate water borne diseases in fruits, vegetables and meat and unlike conventional filters the in-house built filter will also be removing arsenics.

4. vSWAT: Creating a 4D VR jacket, vSWAT are making a product that is every gamers dream. The vSWAT jacket will provide haptic feedback for cold/heat and pressure for a richer VR experiences.

5. InovoTech: The InovoTech device is designed to detect the water level in household tanks and control water supply accordingly. This will in turn empower households to monitor the water levels through their smart phones.

6. Zeus Urban Farms: Named after the Greek God Zeus, who rules the sun, the startup is creating a hydroponics solution for urban farming committed to building and sustaining a community of urban farmers to address the food requirements of a local community.

Plan9 is the brain child of Dr. Umar Saif, Chairman PITB. About the influx of more hardware driven technologies, he had to say:

“The eco-system for Hardware startups is not developed, but things are changing. There are more opportunities coming up in the Hardware space as well as investor interest” Dr. Umar Saif, Chairman, PITB.