In an insightful conversation with ProPakistani, Burhan Mirza, the visionary co-founder of TheCoach360 and Skills360, discusses his entrepreneurial journey and the transformative educational initiatives he has championed.
A life and career coach, entrepreneur, and angel investor, Mirza has dedicated himself to mentoring and uplifting the youth of Pakistan through innovative career and business coaching.
His ventures, TheCoach360 and Skills360, aim to revolutionize the way young professionals and students in Pakistan approach their careers, fostering a new generation of skilled and independent individuals. In this exclusive interview, Mirza shares his insights on the importance of career counseling, the unique approach of Skills360 in the educational landscape, and his vision for expanding the reach of these transformative programs throughout Pakistan.
He is currently providing consultancy and mentorship to various IT companies across Pakistan. He can be reached here.
It all started with a thought of giving back to the community. The thought then turned into a vision and the vision to a reality. In 2022, I co-founded TheCoach360 with the aim of guiding and mentoring the youth of the country. In Pakistan, most of the students are doing a certain degree because they haven’t explored any other degree. They would just take admissions in a certain university and opt for a degree because their friends were doing so and would never think about any future opportunities associated with that degree.
Similarly, for people who are employed, they end up sticking with a job that is relevant to their degree, but won’t switch to any other job in which they can actually perform better or realise their true potential. Besides career counselling, TheCoach360 also focuses on business consultancy for organizations as well as individuals who are struggling in maintaining the bottom line or even at the operations front of the business.
Skills360 is actually the practical implementation of TheCoach360 and it was launched in March earlier last year. The vision behind Skills360 is to encourage our youth to stay in Pakistan, earn via global platforms and improve their standards of living. So far, we have successfully upskilled over 500 students and not only upskilled them but empowered them to achieve financial independence.
Needless to say, we don’t have any financial objectives with this institute as such, you might already know that our first batch was completely free and the other batches were charged a minimal amount of Rs.5000 only to ensure that students who have enrolled for the course take this seriously and it’s only possible when a financial obligation is attached to such courses.
At Skills360, we focus on providing relevant, in-demand and highly paid skills to the students. There are multiple courses being offered at the facility and all of them enable you to start a career either with a company or do freelance work. Some of the complex courses like CMS Development and Web Engineering are also offered to cater to an experienced audience. We are trying to create this ecosystem where the industry experts are the only faculty members who are passing on first hand industry knowledge and side by side working with students to take them on the industry required skill set.
With the help of seasoned professionals from the education industry like Dr Shaukat Wasi, we are devising the curriculum as such that the students are able to learn the implementation and execution of the theory and concepts which they have learnt in colleges and universities. The idea is to make the students market ready in all aspects which is why we have also started soft skills training at our institute too. The purpose behind this is to prepare students for interviews and build on their presentation skills so once they complete their courses from Skills360, they can be picked up by recruiters in a flash.
That’s a very good question! Throughout my career from ground up to CEO and now as a coach and an investor, I have seen one thing which is common in almost every organisation i.e. people are afraid to ask for help from their seniors, from their juniors and even their counterparts. Pakistan is still very far behind in this and the main reason for this is the resistance in our people; the resistance to change, accept and learn new things.
I do believe Pakistan is still in the process of realizing the full potential of career counseling and mentorship programs, and there’s a lot of room for growth. While the importance of these services is starting to be acknowledged, we still face some challenges in truly embracing and maximizing their benefits.
Many students and young professionals in Pakistan don’t always recognize how valuable career counseling and mentorship can be. Many people rely on family connections or their immediate network for guidance, which can sometimes limit their opportunities.
The sad reality is that many schools and universities in Pakistan don’t have the infrastructure to offer career counseling. Many students graduate without a clear direction, unsure about what to do next. This could be a huge missed opportunity, as schools and universities should be the places where students get help figuring out their next steps—whether that’s landing a job, starting a business, or pursuing further studies.
In my opinion, every individual at some point of their career needs career counseling and mentorship. Even today, I have a few mentors to whom I go when I am in a complex situation or need their support with something. You might have heard of the African proverb ‘if you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go together’ – mentorship helps you go places where you can’t even imagine. A mentor can be anyone whom you think is the right person in the right industry with the right experience and has the right advice for you.
I think the key is a shift in mindset. Career counseling and mentorship aren’t just about securing a job; they’re about helping individuals discover what they truly want to do, guiding them along the way, and building a society where everyone has the chance to pursue their passion and reach their full potential. For Pakistan to really tap into the benefits of these programs, we need to create a supportive ecosystem—one that values education, mentorship, and long-term growth.
I have been asked this question a lot of times and my answer is the same to all. With all due respect to all other institutes, Skills360 is not just another ordinary institute handing over certificates to the students – that’s the last thing which we want to do. We exist to make an impact in the society, transform lives of the youth in Pakistan and make them financially independent.
You will be surprised to know that we have very strict policies in place to maintain discipline and ensure a smooth learning journey. As harsh as it may sound, if a student fails to clear the monthly assessment, they have to be let go because we want to maintain a certain standard of the students and not enroll them just to hand a piece of paper in the name of a certificate.
Another important distinguishing factor is the faculty which is teaching at Skills360. The entire faculty consists of industry experts who are currently working in the fields of the subjects which they are teaching. To make this easier for you to understand, the HoD of the CMS department in ProByte Pvt Ltd (our Technical Support Partners) is teaching the CMS course and so on. What this does is, it equips the students with the relevant and required skill set to step in the industry and work according to its current standards.
Moreover, at Skills360, we have introduced a state of the art infrastructure with high tech systems and softwares which helps the students to work on complex projects quite easily. We are not only training them on capacity building and skills building but also giving them an opportunity to make themselves accustomed to the latest systems and innovations.
As I mentioned above, we want to ensure high quality instead of higher numbers – we have also introduced a soft skills training which is mandatory for every student. Not only it helps them to build a confident personality but it also helps them to prepare for interviews and future correspondence with local and international clients. An HR professional who works at a reputable company conducts these trainings weekly and also helps them to build their resume on industry wide accepted standards.
With Skills360, we try to be different not to be indifferent. We are trying our bit to make this ecosystem a productive one and we are only doing this to give back to the society so that in the future we are successful in putting Pakistan on the global skilled labour roadmap.
Interesting question, this is the first time I am being asked about this but it’s a very important one. So the journey starts right when you register with us for the desired course. Every 4 months, we offer a mix of different courses for applicants, they can choose as per their interest. Once they have registered, the next step is that they receive a call from our team to confirm registration. Post confirmation, the candidate is given details on the in person test schedule.
The test is a very basic one consisting of different components on basic English, maths, computer knowledge, general knowledge and a bit of critical analysis. It is conducted on an online platform created by our team and as soon as the test is over, we are able to see the results.
The criteria for making it to the next round is 60% passing marks which is again very basic and acceptable as per the norms. The next step comes in after clearing the test, i.e. the interview.
The interviews are conducted for further screening and to learn more about the candidate and to see if they fit well in the institute. There are three evaluating parameters for the interviews and the candidate is informed right away if we would like to see them again.
Once the pool of vetted and finalised candidates is ready, we then send out welcome emails and ask them to pay the course fee (very minimal) to confirm admission so that we can reserve the slots and start on with induction by handing them course outline and material.
The pressing point to be noted here is we have very limited slots so even though the registrations might exceed 5000 or 10000, we will still be able to accommodate the ones who actually make it through the entire process with shining numbers.
I think it’s too soon to ask this question because the journey has just started and we have a very long way to go. At Skills360, as I mentioned earlier, we are quality focused and stress on the fact that our assets, our alumni should be able to stand apart in the crowd.
From March, till date we have had three batches of students for different courses. Few of them had to be let go because of their unsatisfactory results in the monthly assessments but overall more than 95% students were able to complete their courses. If we put this into perspective, we had over 500 students out there ready for opportunities coming their way may it be in the form of a freelance gig or an internship or an office based job. Over 60% of them have already started with their careers with the help of the skills which they learnt with us.
Since day one, it’s less about what we do and more about the impact we are able to make and with these students going out in the market and earning to improve the lifestyle of their families then one can only imagine the impact which is being made. I always say and will say it again that if you can change one life you can change a generation.
Another resourceful activity which we do with our alum is we take their feedback on various things like the obstacles they face after getting the certification, their feedback on learning practices and on response from the market to ensure we can improve everyday and provide the best to the students. Recently, an alum reached out to us and told us that his freelancing portfolio has grown by at least 20% after the certification and this is primarily due to the improved level of skill set which he had learnt from our institute.
Again, I feel it’s just the start but yes we do have success stories and real life examples which make us cherish our existence. Our aim is to provide financial independence to the youth and eventually contribute towards the growth of the economy and we still have a long way to go.
Absolutely! Infact, even now we have a few other courses in place which aren’t directly related to IT and are being taught at Skills360. The only reason why we are focusing more on IT related courses is because of the plethora of opportunities not just locally but globally as well. As you may know that most of these students come from humble backgrounds and are mostly the only breadwinners for their families. We focus on skills and courses which can help them get quick results in the form of money making opportunities.
Secondly, we also offer personality building and capacity building courses as an add on to all our students as I mentioned above that we want our alum to be market ready right from the moment they complete the courses from our institute. Besides this, we also plan to introduce courses which focus on core subjects like marketing, HR, legal and more in the future too.
With these courses and certifications, we want to become the one stop shop for all things skills in Pakistan and make a mark in the EdTech industry with the quality of the work we are doing. We will soon be introducing short training sessions for both individuals and corporations to diversify what we are currently doing. The objective is to upskill Pakistan and make our workforce locally and globally competitive.
We haven’t really thought about this as of now because even in Karachi we are yet to serve the entire eligible population of over 20 million. This really depends on if we partner with the public sector as the cost of running such setups is very high and right now we are doing this as a service to the society as we usually don’t charge for courses.
Secondly, as I mentioned above in my responses too, we are more focused towards the quality of the work rather than just distributing certificates to students – we will stand firm on it and only think of expansion when all of these boxes are being ticked. We will later start online courses too which will be accessible to the audience on our portal and can be accessed from parts of the country. Expansion options can be explored perhaps at a later stage.
First and foremost, I think we need to realise that as much as it is our government’s responsibility to work for such initiatives, it’s the responsibility of the private sector as well. We need big corporations to step up and contribute to such initiatives – a lot of these companies have huge budgets for CSR and if they start contributing to such causes then the ecosystem will get a major boost.
Secondly, the mentality needs to change. We need to look at the bigger picture that is the issues we are trying to solve with this. The problems of brain drain, skill parity and the gap between education and industry isn’t something which can be tackled in a matter of days or even months. We have to trust the process and keep building upon the infrastructure for generations to come.
Additionally, I think such institutions and certifications should be normalised by both the governing bodies of the education sector and by the people who are responsible for hiring candidates. Yes, degrees are important but the relevant skill set is equally important. Currently, there’s minimal to no value given to these certifications, while in my opinion they should be valued more because of its hardcore practical knowledge which the students receive during the tenure of different courses.
Another important point is we need the authorities to help with the infrastructure costs, specifically the costs of installation of hi tech systems. This is usually the biggest cost header for institutions and these systems have to be regularly upgraded to ensure we stay parallel to the changing trends. The operation cost is another massive hurdle which we have due to rising utility costs. Additionally, we also need the authorities to ensure an uninterrupted internet connectivity because it does have an impact on institutions like ours too in some way or the other.
If the ecosystem is successfully put in place, it can bring unimaginable good to the country. It will open doors of employment to thousands of people, we will be able to retain our talent, we will once again take a major spot in the global freelancing market and I can give you hundred more ways on how it will benefit us as a country. Eventually, the economy will grow, the GDP will grow and the living standards of our people will improve. We will see many students becoming entrepreneurs too creating more opportunities for future generations and it will create a loop of success for Pakistan.