Islamabad hosted Pakistan’s first artificial intelligence-powered fashion show last year, the garments on display were entirely real, handcrafted by women entrepreneurs from underserved communities with skills in stitching and embroidery developed over years. What was different was that the models showcasing those designs were not. Generated entirely through artificial intelligence, the virtual runway was built to give visibility to work that had previously circulated only within local markets and immediate communities. The event served as the graduation ceremony for the first cohort of Ba-Ikhtiar, PTCL’s initiative focused on helping women build sustainable livelihoods through technology, skills, and expanded access to economic opportunity.
The programme began in Haripur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with 100 young women who already possessed skills in stitching and embroidery but had no reliable pathway to markets beyond their immediate vicinity. PTCL, in partnership with the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund, designed Ba-Ikhtiar to address that gap by layering digital literacy, entrepreneurship training, financial awareness, and access to online platforms on top of the vocational skills the participants already had. The combination produced a measurable shift in how the women could reach buyers and build businesses around their craft. Some participants went on to showcase their work at GITEX Global in Dubai and Lok Mela, giving their designs visibility that would have been unimaginable before the programme. The core insight that Ba-Ikhtiar demonstrated was that technology can amplify existing talent without requiring those it serves to become technology experts themselves. The women needed access to tools, platforms, and knowledge, not a wholesale reinvention of the skills they had spent years developing.
That learning has shaped how the programme has evolved since its first cohort. Ba-Ikhtiar has expanded beyond stitching and embroidery into pottery, handicrafts, food preservation, online tutoring, and organic cosmetics, recognising that the model of connecting skills to digital markets and entrepreneurship training is applicable across a wide range of traditional and emerging livelihoods. Phase Two of the initiative is now covering 22 districts and targeting 2,100 women, a geographic and numerical expansion that moves the programme from a focused pilot into a genuine provincial-scale effort.
For PTCL, Ba-Ikhtiar represents its understanding of what connectivity infrastructure can enable when it is pointed deliberately at inclusion. A network connects people to each other, but when combined with digital skills, market access, and entrepreneurship support, it can connect people to knowledge, financial services, and economic opportunity in ways that transform how they participate in the broader economy. The programme positions women not as passive recipients of technology but as entrepreneurs, creators, and active contributors to Pakistan’s digital economy, which is precisely the kind of participation that inclusive growth requires.
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