Kis Uni

 A student-led social impact startup working to put more Pakistani high school students into their desired universities by providing concise admission guides and 1-on-1 help.

Our vision with Kis Uni is to remove disparity in prospective university students in Pakistan. As a developing country, the quality of education and opportunities available for every student vary highly due to differences in socioeconomic factors. Students coming from modest backgrounds find themselves at a great disadvantage as compared to those coming from rich backgrounds.

We’re trying to reduce this inequality by:

• Providing Concise Admission guides. These guides contain everything from how to start the application procedure, filling the application, offering programs and facilities, preparing for tests and fee structures.

• Live 1-on-1 help from a mentor. Mentors are current students at respective universities. Students can ask them about their experiences and seek guidance on various aspects of pre-university and university life.

• Student-centered podcast talking about life at different universities nationwide.

• Discord community for instant help from fellow applicants and mentors.

All our offerings are freely accessible to everyone.

A majority of Pakistan’s population lives under sub-standard living conditions with little to no basic necessities. Most of the times students are first-generation college students. They don’t receive proper counselling and are unaware of the benefits of education. Some students don’t even continue their education after middle school. Apart from this, many high school students are unsure of their future career paths. Many would take gap years merely for scoring an admission to a university or end up in completely wrong careers. According to Pakistan Economic Survey 2021, there were more than 5 million high school students in Pakistan. According to UNESCO’s statistics in 2019, Gross Enrolment ratio (GER) at the secondary education level was 87.6% which drops to 12.2% at the tertiary education level. We want to fix this disparity and work towards removing educational inequality in Pakistan.

We support Pakistan’s high school students and show them the right opportunities for them. Students come to us worried about not performing good in exams or not being able to afford tuition fee. Little do they know that, exam scores are only one component of the application and almost all universities offer decent financial aids. There’s a great lack of awareness and continuing education after high school is still not preferred. Our work encourages our users to continue their education and that too at their desired universities.  During this process, we indirectly contribute to increasing literacy rates, better living standards for people and the progress of the country.

We started this after realizing the need ourselves. We wished there was such a platform when we were contemplating our university admissions. Prior to inception, we talked to a lot of experts in academia and high school students.  After the launch, we’ve seen a tremendously positive response. Our users have been very appreciating and recommending their friends to us. We receive feedback and strive to improve ourselves.

We are at the prototype stage as we're still unsure about our business model. We want to be free for our users and at the same time be financially sustainable. We do have launched some of our offerings and continuously expanding them, meanwhile, we work on a viable financial model. We have managed to get around 1000 unique visitors on our website and 200 followers on Instagram all with the help of word of mouth.

The core technology involved with our solution is the Internet. Our website includes admission guides, volunteer forms and request forms. We use Social Media networks and Discord for communications.

During the past two months, since we launched our prototype, we have had over 1000 unique visitors on our website and 200 followers on Instagram with 0 marketing budget. Daily, we get queries from 2 persons on average on our Instagram account. By the end of the year 2022, we want to serve at least 50000 people from more than the 5 million target market we have.

Over the coming years, we plan to be the one-stop-shop for all high school student needs, be it study help, career counselling or recreational activities. We want to achieve this while keeping it free or very affordable for the Pakistani Population.

We have planned countrywide seminars where we will be visiting less privileged schools and telling the importance of tertiary education to young high schoolers. We will be reaching out to different organizations and collaborating with them.  

Our main focus will be convincing corporate entities to spend on student well-being as in the end, they'll benefit the most from exceptionally talented individuals.

Our website is equipped with the latest analytics features that allow us to measure certain statistics. We can know about what admission guides are more sought after. We also learn about users' interactions and time spent on the website.

Our team meets virtually fortnightly to track the progress each member has put in with the task they were assigned. At the end of the month, we have a brainstorming session to share ideas and talk about future plans.

The biggest challenge we're facing is a lack of finance. We need a budget to design our offerings and spend on marketing. 

Kis Uni started with the realization that such a platform was the need of the hour. Our team members all are students either enrolled in universities or in their final years of high school. As all of us are students, we understand each other very well and are very empathetic. Any of the team members can share their idea with the rest of the team or about how we can improve something we're working on.

Our founding members are all enrolled in STEM programs at top universities of Pakistan.

• Mahad Imran - Founder: Studying Geoinformatics Engineering at National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST).
• Abdullah Tahir - Co-Founder: Studying Software Engineering at National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST).
• Zammad Khan - Co-Founder: Studying Computer Science at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).

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