In the beginning of the year, Daastan hosted its first story writing competition that set the precedent for other seasons of the program that would follow. The first season was an unimaginable hit, with almost 100 entries from all over Pakistan. Daastan got to uncover some major talent and later on also published a book as a tribute to the top 5 position holders, titled “A Journey to Stardom”, which documented their struggles as a writer in a community which tends to overlook the artisans present in it. October of 2016 saw Daastan pitching for a micro fund of 2500 USD which it went on to win for season 2 of “The Stories Untold”. The fund was offered by the PeaceTech Lab under the banner of PeaceTech Exchange (PTX). PTX is a workshop-based competition which enables peace sustaining enterprises to contest and win the offered amount by pitching their idea and establishing how it will help underdeveloped regions utilize technology for the advent of peace, social inclusion and conflict resolution.
A War Within:
With funding under its belt from Peacetech Lab, PTX, Technology for Peace Initiative (TPI) and United States Institute of Peace, Daastan launched season 2 of “The Stories Untold” with the theme “A War Within”. This time around, we encouraged writers and participants to look deep into the conflicts and pressures faced by individuals on a daily basis, and chart out whole territories on how to deal with them, both as an observer as well as the victim. It was the perfect opportunity for every person who had felt caged at any time in their life to put that feeling to words and come out stronger and accomplished. The competition was split into two modules, which allowed Urdu writers to send in entries as well, helping us reach a part of the community we hadn’t been able to touch before. We also partnered with “The Ancient Souls” from across the border to expand our entry base, as well as the “Young Women Writer’s Forum Pakistan”.
Results of the competition:
As expected, the participants blew us away. We received more than 150 entries from all over the world of such high quality that it was a great difficulty to shortlist them. The qualifying rounds consisted of top 30, followed by top 15 and then the final winners. Each shortlisted candidate’s work was published digitally on Qissa, and the top ones also lived the dream of seeing their work go into print. The certificates and prizes distributed, along with publications, amounted to a grand total of 100,000 PKR.
Certificate for the winners of The Stories Untold Season Two
Are you a writer who has a story caged in their chests? Sign up on Qissa and publish your work, or keep up with our updates on Daastan to participate in our next story writing competition.
After a gruesome year of rejections and heartache for the founders of Daastan, we finally had our break when the company and its vision was incubated by Plan9 in 2015. Since then Daastan has been rising to the top and jostling the otherwise stagnant and dying literary industry of Pakistan. Earlier in 2016 Daastan published its first novel and has already started working on the publication of its second novel, all the while having already shipped out its very first orders. All this, however, was just the stage being set for a groundbreaking achievement that was yet to come – being selected as one of the Top 25 Startups in the Pakistan Startup Cup Challenge.
What is this Challenge?
The Pakistan Startup Cup challenge is a business model competition, which welcomes all kinds of business ideas from all over the country to compete among each other, meanwhile empowering them from a grass-root level to grow and flourish their business, and provide them with insight of the experts on how to build sustainable ecosystem. The challenge is a brainchild of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Islamabad, and is held in collaboration with the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan.
Daastan rising to the top:
The Startup Cup Challenge received almost a thousand applications from all over Pakistan. Only 130 of those were called to be a part of the challenge and participate in round one, i.e. Build a Business Workshop, and after a tough competition the top 25 made it to the next round, Daastan being one of them. Daastan eliminated more than a hundred mature startups, which were assumed to be better in theory by those who thought literature is dead end when it comes to business. It was the winning of this cup, that proved everyone who thought that way wrong.
Our team consisting of Founder Daastan Syed Ommer Amer (right) and Co-Founder and Editor in Chief Sidra Amin (left)
Team Daastan exhibited Qissa Self-Publishing launched by Daastan for Pakistan’s budding authors, which enables them to bring their work into print ready format and get it published, without the hassle of going through the legalities themselves. If you have a manuscript and are looking to get published, reach out to us through our Facebook or sign up on Qissa.
The journey of Daastan and its self-publishing platform ‘Qissa’ started in the year of 2014. The founder, Syed Ommer Amer, also the author of Qissa’s debut novel, put his heart and soul into two things. First, the novel itself, which was to be the first domino in the disruption of the literary industry of Pakistan. Second, after being rejected by a publisher and seemingly at a loss of another way to bring his work to the public – the creation of Daastan. That is where it all began.
Fast forward two years – through a six month incubation in Plan9 and bringing Daastan’s vision to national and international media and making waves throughout the industry – to the start of 2016, which finally brought with itself the fruit of countless hours of toil, rejections, sleepless nights, extreme criticism and dejection, and the fruit was as sweet as the team had predicted. Qissa – Pakistan’s first self-publishing platform – a service to make publishing easier, and to finally bring forth all the opportunities that the writers of this country had been previously deprived of, was here.
The protagonist of The Forbidden Story
What The Forbidden Story is About:
And with it, came the realization of the founder’s dream – in the form of his novel finally getting published. ‘The Forbidden Story’ is Pakistan’s first action thriller novel. It features the life of comrades under the banner of ‘Flame’ who are code named Angel and Hamza. It is a story of the quest that follows when they find their colleague and fellow Ignitors brutally murdered by the followers of Flame’s enemy, and their corpses left in cold blood. It isn’t until Flame’s Secret Database gets broken into and their finest marks-woman is captured, that Angel and Hamza realize that they might have blundered.
The tale follows the visionary Rex, leader of the Flame, and the evil antagonist Sal, the creator of the assassins, through eleven chapters written in a manner that one can’t help but keep flipping pages to get to the end.
Over the course of 2016, along with developing its businesses and improving by leaps and bounds, Daastan also had the opportunity to launch “Daastan Freelance Writers”. It was a closed beta version wing of the company providing content solutions to clients who required professionally written content that spoke for itself. This was among Daastan’s various innovative initiatives targeted to revolutionize and therefore make easier the process of writers earning a livelihood for themselves through paid writing gigs, and thus gaining financial independence through their writings. At its peak, this wing had over 70 writers working on a daily basis, who had a combined skill set of 20 plus genres. On average, Daastan Freelance Writing Wing generated almost 5,000 words daily, for more than 5 clients.
Eventually, Daastan had the privilege of signing a contract with Startup.pk. A firm which aims to empower entrepreneurs much like ourselves and provide them with a platform to build their skills, knowledge, exchange opportunities, resourceful connections, and mentoring and training services which eventually helps them scale and build strong entrepreneurial thinking as well as linkages in the industry.
Daastan’s Partnership with Startup.pk:
Daastan’s involvement with Startup.pk ensured its own advancement, as its writers started gaining exposure and became a direct part of Pakistan’s start-up culture, which not only encouraged their entrepreneurial thinking and innovation but also groomed them and their writing skills into becoming more professional, refined, and diverse. Daastan encourages all of its writers into joining its professional team, and makes certain that all those with fine-tuned capabilities are revealed to the world and their talents exhibited in relevant areas. The directors have over time realized that not everyone wants to write stories; many writers simply require an avenue which will provide them with paid work.
How can you become a part of the team?
To cater to this, the executives decided to strengthen their freelance platform to provide more of such opportunities to local writers. To join, you can simply sign up on Qissa – all you only need to have the strong will to showcase your abilities, followed by the capacity to work and make sure you are seen for all your potential. Daastan’s partnership with Startup.pk is neither the first, nor will it be the last of its kind, as we are constantly striving to bring bigger and better opportunities to our team. If you own a business, and require quality content solutions, talk to us of your needs by emailing us at merasawal@daastan.com, or contacting us through our website and we will be sure to whip up writings customized to your requirements.
