A few of you asked me the same thing after that post. Different words, same question. “Okay Umar, but is the institute actually working, or is this just the only door left open?”
Fair question. Let me answer it with a number instead of a feeling.
Our December batch, the first one after we expanded, we opened applications expecting maybe 200, 300 people. Something we could handle with the space and staff we had at the time.
We got over 800 applications.
Not likes. Not “interested” comments. Applications. People filling forms, showing up for tests, sitting through interviews, for a NAVTTC-accredited course most of them had never heard of a year earlier.
Out of that, 125 actually enrolled and are training right now.
I didn’t get there by posting a flyer and hoping word of mouth would carry it, the way institutes here usually run. I ran it like a funnel. Ads, follow-ups, a support team calling people back, the same discipline I used to sell software to clients abroad, just pointed at a different outcome.
That number is the reason I could look at my own team and say “come teach instead of leaving.” That number is the reason we didn’t just survive, we rented a second, bigger campus three months ago. That number is the reason we went and got Federal Board affiliated, so today Uptech Institute isn’t just short courses anymore. We run matric and intermediate, NAVTTC courses and our own paid programs, under one roof, two campuses.
I started as a freelancer in 2016 building software for people who never saw my face. Never imagined I’d end up building classrooms instead of codebases.
But if AI is going to keep eating the work I built my name on, I’d rather spend what is left of my energy on something that hands 125 people a real shot at accredited, job-oriented training they’d never have found on their own.
To the nine I let go last week, this is what your years here turned into. I hope that means something.
Umar H.
Originally posted on Facebook on 5 September 2026.
Editor’s note, Oct 2026: the second campus opened in May 2026 and operations started on 1 July 2026. Uptech is now an FBISE-affiliated college (Matric and Intermediate) alongside skills courses.
