Entrepreneur and business executive Kamil Mehmood’s incredibly generous donation to our Indiegogo campaign made it possible for us to successfully bring Papercuts out in print. The Papercuts team asked Kamil a few questions to learn more about him and to understand why it’s important for him to give back to society.
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Papercuts: Thank you for your generous contribution. Tell us a little bit about the motivation behind your support and the impact you’d like to see.
Kamil: Papercuts came across as a unique project that was making a genuine effort to preserve and contribute towards art, culture, and literature. In preserving our values, perhaps we can do our little part in passing on to future generations what we had taken for granted. I look forward to the magazine not only being a success locally in Pakistan, but becoming an icon for Pakistanis and, someday, for people who share English as a language across the globe.
P: Are there any causes or charities that you are particularly moved by?
K: I believe ‘we do enough wrong when we choose to do nothing’. I have always believed that our perils as a nation have a common cause – one that is simple to identify, but somehow not very simple to eliminate. A lack of education, or in most cases, a severe lack of knowledge even amongst educated people is a worrying trend. I was lucky to be involved in a startup venture by a close friend from Australia who was born in Pakistan, in an area where there were no schools. In his efforts to get a basic education, he eventually became someone who converted his family home into a school that over the years has grown to educate more than 250 students every year for free. More than the resources he provides, his true contributions are his time and effort. He took on the painstaking work of devising the entire education material in line with Western education but still complying with our religious and national values. We are now trying to work out how to replicate the effort in other areas.
P: What kind of scope do you see for social entrepreneurship projects in Pakistan? Do you think more synergy should be created between business interests and projects like DWL?
K: Social entrepreneurship is an area that unfortunately takes a lot of time to sink roots, especially in a society like ours. Meaningful sustenance, a prime struggle in life for most, tends to overshadow any social benefits one might envisage. That being said, I see Pakistan being blessed with people who have a giving nature. Perhaps there is room for an alignment between business interests and particular projects like DWL whereby the brand could be promoted to other areas that eventually see both financial and social returns.
P: Tell us about your reading interests. What are you reading these days?
K: Unfortunately my work commitments have a habit of getting between me and more important things in life. When I do get to surface, I enjoy a bit of poetry and am intrigued by Sufism as a school of thought. Rumi’s writings have always been a delight, although I can’t say I am an expert on the subject.
Buy the Volume 13 print edition (link)