Back in May 2012 I got introduced to Katie Lewis at a peer collaboration forum held at LBS, though that particular forum was not my cup of tea the introduction to Katie and 9Others kicked off a series of epic mini adventures. If you are unfamiliar with 9Others I recommend you familiarise yourself, meet up with Katie and Matthew and join the community of 'others'.

Having attended a few dinners, benefited from the community and given back, I took the plunge and with the founders blessing started hosting dinners whilst travelling to cities unfamiliar with concept of 9others and/or organised peer collaboration, my first was in Islamabad, the second in Karachi and third in Dubai, and since then its gone on when ever I end up in any of these cities and have been awarded the privilege of being the host for Islamabad, Karachi and Dubai for 9Others! (thank you Katie, Matthew).

In May the focus of the dinners in Karachi changed, whilst the usual suspects are entrepreneurs from tech and tech related sectors I opted to run a micro-fail experiment and see what happens when you get 9 entrepreneurs of circumstances together, the experience was stimulating, challenging and cosmic!

The first such dinner was held in the last week of May 2014 in a neighbourhood called Qayumabad in Karachi, Pakistan; you can read about it here. Since I was in Karachi for a few days that week I moderated the dinner myself and trained the team at Peace Through Prosperity (PTP) to host and more importantly moderate the dinners.

As with DSDM and SCRUMBAN Peace Through Prosperity’s team took to it like fish to water and in the first week of June hosted two additional dinners! one in Korangi 2.5 and one in Bilal colony. Though both the dinners were successes, what happened at the dinner in Korangi 2.5 is what I want to share in this post...

Entrepreneur of circumstance Fruit Vendor Karachi

The 9Others dinner in Korangi 2.5 was held on the 7th of June 2014 and attended by 10 entrepreneurs of circumstances and 3 moderators from team PTP. The age ranges were from 17 year old Mohammad Masood a street based fruit vendor to 50 year old Abdul Rasheed a local Fruit wholesaler. At the dinner one of the attendees was Naeem Uddin a 45 year old food vendor whose challenge was his livelihood; recent troubles in the city had wiped him out financially and though he had his own cart to sell wares from he had no capital or credit line to buy stock and start over.

Peace Through Prosperity Poverty Entrepreneur of circumstance Fruit wholesale Karachi

In stepped Abdul Rasheed a local Fruit wholesaler who enquired if Naeem would be open to selling fruit instead of samosas and kebabs... Naeem's response was resolute yes and Abdul Rasheed promised him a PKR 50,000- (£300) credit line on stock. The team checked on Naeem the next day and found him with a full cart of fruits and a beaming smile... it is a win-win for both the entrepreneurs!That's the power of others... when peer collaboration and peer sourcing works it is magical! The Peace Through Prosperity team plans to host 2-4 such 9others dinners for this entrepreneur segment on a monthly basis. Good job and good luck... you can keep pulse with what they are up to here, here and here. #yourSuccessRequiresTheAidOfOthers