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Azhar Rizvi, a multifaceted seasoned professional is an entrepreneur evangelist, serial entrepreneur, business & strategy consultant, a coach, social missionary, and an author. He has devoted all his life to help people and organizations innovate smarter and achieve higher growth targets.
Within the span of 8 years, a number of 450 firms evidenced an impact of USD 1.0+ B to the IT Sector. It is a remarkable growth to the IT sector in only 8 years. In this period, 100+ firms crossed the million dollars export mark resulting in the Global Recognition of the Pakistan IT Sector. A lot of great initiatives resulted in the enormous development and implementation of Entrepreneurial Education at Universities, which would obviously result more Azhar Rizvi’s in the upcoming future of Pakistan. Across the country, mushroom growth of similar programs evidenced in these 8 years. The Global Recognition of the Pakistan IT Sector opened the ventures for Leading international programs and competitions establishing their presence in Pakistan. The significant impact broadened the vision of Pakistan youth visualizing to establish multimillion dollars ventures and compete on the global scale.
As a co-founder and CEO of Cambridge Advisors Network, Rizvi collaboratively developed entrepreneurial ecosystem in Pakistan. The CANs network boosted up the growth and technology with great social impacts. With this network, Rizvi spread the applicable model of integration in our country. This specific network has worked with great government sector organizations such as HEC, National ICT and R & D Fund, KPK IT Board, Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad. The significant landmark IBA takes upon the working of CAN with 60 universities and 300 organizations. The workings include various kind of workshops, seminars and policy development programs. The dynamic social services of Rizvi in the field of entrepreneurship has uplifted Pakistan’s digital ecosystem creating more number of employment opportunities.
Upon the request of the then Director Dr. Ishrat Hussain, Rizvi developed and implemented a Business Plan Competition program. The program was designed similar to the specs of MIT Business Acceleration Program. Initially, the program started with participation from 15 universities with a maximum capacity of 65 universities participating from all over the country. Over 10,000 participated in this program with over 500 projects each year from across all industries. Several of these projects were later incubated at their respective university incubation centers which are now running successful ventures. Another major impact witnessed because of the mandatory participation of the students’ team to have a multidisciplinary participation ensured the development of cross learning and mutual respect. The teams were also encouraged with special marks for creating multi-university teams. Soon, the students from LUMS were working on various projects with Punjab University, IBA with Sir Syed University, Fatima Jinnah Rawalpindi with NUST and many others. Within a short period, it created a great environment of collaborative learning and respect among the youth of the country.
Upon the request of Lt. Gen. Muhammad Asghar, then the Rector NUST and Rare Admiral Muhammad Mushtaq, Provost and Head of TIC NUST, this significant program was initiated. Like the MIT and IBA program developed earlier, this program takes upon 5 months intense training, mentoring, and coaching from the industry. A highlighted achievement of this program is patronage of the PM office and being labelled as PM Entrepreneurial Challenge, giving it instant recognition from all the Universities across Pakistan. Another major impact was Armed forces Colleges and Universities participation bringing several Ph.ds and researchers working in the Defense Research Organizations to the program and later opened opportunities for CAN to work with them. This program also reached 65+ universities with greater participation from Universities from KPK and FATA region with an enrollment of Almost 12000 students from 68 universities part pated each year with over 500+ projects worked at and submitted each year.
Rizvi Automated PTCL with state-of-the-art billing system, as a Multi-National Accounts Manager; automated, Habib Bank in New York, Figi & Nigeria.
Rizvi not only joined UNISYS Pakistan but also led the Banking Systems automation of UBL, ABL, Habib Credit & Exchange Bank.
Rizvi has worked with Hughes Network’s representative in Pakistan, created satellite/internet connectivity for ‘Banks, Defense, Oil and Gas’ sector.
Rizvi established an IT company: “EBiz Solutions” in Pakistan, taking it from 2 to 52 people and a sizeable revenue.
With Establishing THK solutions, Rizvi Automated HBL’s first ever, nationwide branch automation and connectivity. He then automated nationwide VPN connectivity, training of 10,000 bank professional on branch automation. It resulted in the largest ever network of VPOs stationed in 200 cities, serving 800 cities network. Then he goes on automating UBL and Emirates Bank Intl during this period. In 2006, visited India for an NASCOM conference and travelled to Delhi to meet National Association for Blind NAB, India, resulting in initiating 2 projects, the former being PASHA upgradation to a paid secretariat and later the DAISY implementation in 5 schools for the vision impaired in Pakistan.
