The Birth
The foundation for CaterpillHERs was laid in 2019, when our founder, Hira Saeed conceived this idea of building a community-led bootcamp for women entrepreneurs in Pakistan. She wrote emails, reached out to her network, and pitched CaterpillHERs at every startup competition.
While, globally, social enterprises are run mostly by women, the concept of women-centric programs was missing from Pakistan's business landscape.
Her research brought up some NPOs working to help women with entrepreneurship skills – but they were working only in the major cities of the country, while more than 62% of the population lives in rural or semi-urban areas.
Hira wanted CaterpillHERs to reach every woman in Pakistan, including – and especially – those living in the remoter regions of Pakistan…
…because the foundation of CaterpillHERs was, and is, equity.
She wanted to introduce technology and digital skills to these women and empower them with it.
This is the year when we ran our first pilot project which had a combination of online and on-site sessions. It was a 1:1 training program on entrepreneurship for women. Our efforts saw their first reward when we were funded by the U.S. Department of State.