Serial entrepreneurs and renowned names, Guddu and Shani are popularly known for their innovations in the fields of photography, film making and brand and venture building with a work experience spanning over a time period of sixteen years. Their portfolio includes names like Sana Safinaz, Nishat Linen, Khaadi, Gul Ahmed and notable international projects as well.
Recently, the duo also launched an institute. Known as Propel, the institute and innovation centre strives to build a workforce carrying an innovative mindset and advanced skills. From creative marketing and basic communication skills for blue collar posts to advanced skills of artificial intelligence and machine learning, their spectrum of offering is quite wide. The focus, throughout, will remain on fertilizing a creative mindset so that massive results can be achieved through a bottom-up revolution.
Guddu and Shani have already produced over 70 highly skilled people for the fashion industry which include award-winning names like MHM, Sunil Nawab, Adil Ishaq, etc., along with many others. According to them, the reason why they felt a need to go for this venture was that more than 40 percent of the country’s population entering into the workforce in the next five years was doing so without any proper preparations for innovation economics and new-age skills.
Propel’s goal, therefore, is to address the need for skilled workers in today’s rapidly changing workforce that should keep itself updated with the demands of the time. To do so, they have created a series of self-paced learning videos combined with informative seminars at different institutes nationwide. They are also sure that a Propel app will soon be available for mobile devices.
In Shani’s words,
‘Our population statistic is an opportunity while on the other hand, I call it “time bomb reality”. Just imagine, 43.3% of Pakistan’s population entering into the workforce without any preparation for the new digital age. Our vision is to produce education equity by bringing the highest quality professional and applied education to a common person at affordable prices in Urdu or other, simplest-possible languages. Our mission is to build collaborations with companies so that we can create an impact as soon as possible because it is a matter of emergency.
Propel will fill the void left by the traditional educational system. It will reduce HR and Recruitment losses for companies. Conventionally, they spend a lot of unseen expense and time to train an employee after the hiring. Even then, they are forced to work at a mediocre level because there is no institute in the country that provides training in advanced skills. Companies want to grow but they do not have the right kind of HR to achieve their aspirational growth targets.
Propel will serve as a bridge between student life and professional life by offering fast-paced education through boot-camps, workshops and seminars in collaboration with professionals with more than ten years of experience from the diaspora working at global corporations like Facebook, Apple, Wal-Mart etc. and local companies as well.
Right now, I am working dedicatedly on this project after leaving most of my business just because I believe someone has to do it and probably it’s our generation who needs to sacrifice for the generations to come. I want to invite business companies and industries to come forward and collaborate with us to help build together a better, prosperous Pakistan.
Photos provided by Guddu & Shani’s PR manager
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