Three drivers of deep innovation

FOR at least two decades, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has been trying to spur universities to achieve the (still) distant dream of academia’s engagement with industry in any beneficial form. That is often imagined, at the low end, to take the form of a privileged pathway for a university’s graduates to careers, or faculty members providing paid consultancy services to industry and the private sector, all the way up to applied research developing into viable business ventures. Let me get it out of the way: at the vast majority of universities in Pakistan, none of these hopes have been realised. But this op-ed is not about what is common and widespread; it is about the exceptions, the rarities, for which I have no official statistics, just a slowly growing trickle of anecdotes.

Over the last 10 years, several university faculty members I know, directly and indirectly, have made the transition from academia to becoming founders/ co-founders of or entering leadership positions in technology companies. Many of them share similar profiles — graduates from Pakistani undergraduate programmes who enrolled in doctoral programmes abroad, not just anywhere, but at some of the world’s best universities. Most of them were enabled by various scholarships, which means they were committed to a five-year bond of service in Pakistan. They returned and joined universities as faculty members and, after completing their bond of service, ventured out on their entrepreneurial journeys. In the years since, those ventures have either grown, been acquired, aquihired, merged, or found other exits.

What makes these technology startups — founded, co-founded, or otherwise — led by PhDs notable and sets them apart from thousands of other startups is that they are working in deep-tech (deep technology); in other words, they are startups or innovations built on scientific breakthroughs, engineering innovation, or complex technical R&D, rather than on simple businessmodel innovation or software-only products — for example, e-commerce, delivery services and ride-hailing services. I am refraining from naming any of these people or their companies, given how difficult it is to navigate the domestic regulatory environment and not attract the attention of predatory officials in search of a cut.

Over the last 10 years, several university faculty members have made the transition from academia to leadership positions in tech companies.

The last few years in technology have, of course, been dominated by rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI). I am currently aware of several former faculty members who have been hired by industry to lead the development of solutions to hard problems in areas that require deep theoretical expertise. The results have been head-turning. Their product demonstrations have prompted other companies to consider academia’s faculty pool in their talent search.

This pattern did not begin with the recent wave of developments in AI. In the preceding decade (the 2010s), there have been faculty members with expertise in computer vision, health-tech, and software-defined networking who have ridden the virtualisation and cloud-computing wave from academia into industry and achieved notable successes. In the 2000s, there were a number of startups working in the area of embedded systems, and in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a number of people from academia were quite active in the field of digital signal processing and chip design. Over the years, many of these companies have built reputations for genuine technical expertise.

In addition to their advanced foreign qualifications, there is one more crucial commonality these (former) academics in deep-tech share: every one that I know of made the transition to industry from top-tier universities of Pakistan — universities that already enjoy excellent reputations for great programmes and whose graduates benefited from their institution’s reputation to get them through the screening stage of hiring processes, universities whose names all readers can guess.

Since our regulators do not require universities to track any metrics of graduate success, when opting for a university programme, prospective students’ decisions are guided by anecdotes and word-of-mouth reputation. Institutions known for post-graduation success attract the best students. That student success is not a random outcome. It is the result of a qualified faculty motivated by ambition and a sense of purpose and mission, which in turn requires a supportive and enabling work environment. Such environments have allowed academics to engage students in research, developing deep expertise and proofs of concept that have led some — not all — on the road to entrepreneurship of the kind I spoke of. If these pieces are present, each reinforces the other in a virtuous cycle. It is a function of quality in terms of faculty, student-intake and work environment.

A few weeks ago, there was a report that the HEC had constituted a task force “to review the performance, structure and effectiveness of Offices of Research, Innovation and Commercialisation operating across public and private universities in Pakistan”. I am bringing this up because if the goal is to enhance innovation and commercialisation of research work conducted in universities, I contend that their ORICs are not the place to start. While ORICs have a helpful and supportive role (managing incubator spaces, tracking paperwork, etc.), they themselves contribute little to the enhancement of the three ingredients critical to fostering an enabling environment that I have listed above — attracting top talent in faculty, ambitious students and creating a positive work environment. The task is what it always has been: a relentless, quality-first mission on all fronts.

The writer has a PhD in education.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2026

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