“My name is Zulfiqar Essa and I’m from Hyderabad, Hunza. I’m the co-founder of TechScape and previously have been awarded the Global UGRAD scholarship. Currently, I’m working on an idea called “Shirijon” which aims to create over 10,000 jobs in the next decade. I’m collaborating on this idea with my team members from Chitral, Punjab, and Germany.

Recently our idea got selected in the top 35 for HULT Prize 2019 from around two hundred thousand global applications received from across 120 countries. In the next round to be held in Amman, Jordan, we will be competing against young entrepreneurs from Harvard Business School, Cambridge, and other globally known institutions. Our idea is the very first Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral (GBC) to make it to the regional round of HULT Prize.

Our team from COMSATS University Islamabad is quite excited to participate in the 10th Annual Hult Prize Regional Summit in an attempt to win a $1 million USD as a seed fund. We think that this idea has the potential to change the economy of not only Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral but entire Pakistan as well.”

This story is part of the #GBCProspers campaign by GBee. Send your stories at editor[at]gbee.pk or inbox your story at our Facebook page.

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My name is Sonaina and I’m from Aliabad, Hunza. I’ve recently graduated from National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore.

Being a Hunza girl, it came to my realization that Burushaski language is being forgotten and young Burusho, especially those who live in the cities, have adopted other languages as the primary means of communication. These days, the influence of other languages on Burushaski is just tremendous.

To make my contribution to on-going efforts of preserving Burushaski, I did my thesis on “The Preservation of Burushaski language“. This project is a vehicle for expressing my ideas that language is the foremost pillar of society to communicate and a creative structural solution can be provided for its preservation.

My motivation to try preserving my own language in a visual form relates to the fact that many people have been fascinated about Burushaski and researchers have found it to be one of the very few isolated languages. Burushaski has still no standard writing system. There isn’t a lot of written literary work but a number of oral traditions have been collected. Burushaski continues to be a language of self-identification among its speakers and despite many efforts, this fascinating language is endangered.

My aim through this project is to preserve Burushaski language through visual means and to ignite the revival of the language in the daily lives of young Burusho living in and outside Hunza.

This story is part of the #GBCProspers campaign by GBee. Send your stories at editor[at]gbee.pk or inbox your story at our Facebook page.

Join GBee to participate in our community forums and discuss topics about Gilgit, Baltistan, Chitral, Kohistan and Kashmir.