At the cutting edge of Blockchain in Pakistan

Published on: February 9, 2022

“Our curiosity fades away through our school, college, and university systems. This is not just an issue in Pakistan, it is a global problem”, says Abdul Sami Khawaja, the co-founder of Xord.

Xord is a trailblazing startup that is introducing blockchain technology to Pakistan by developing products and applications for decentralising conventional systems in the world. Abdul Sami Khawaja and Shakeib Shaida started Xord to build a culture of trust and transparency, both of which are values that are imperative to the Blockchain technology they employ.

Xord’s co-founders, alums of Karachi University UBIT, Abdul Sami Khawaja, Salman Khan and Shakeib Shaida, are young tech entrepreneurs who are rethinking conventional systems in place in Pakistan to redefine businesses and industry processes. And one way they are challenging the traditional systems, is by promoting a culture of supporting transparency across their organizational structure.

“We’ve made our revenues public – anyone in our organization can ask us, if the company’s revenue is increasing, why are we not paying them more?” says Abdul Sami Khawaja as he highlights the organizational structure they’ve built at Xord, that supports trust and openness within not just the core team, but everybody who’s part of the organization – something he feels is, for the most part, lacking in the industry.

Since its inception, Xord has grown into an enterprise of over 150 young individuals where no team member is over the age of 26, and in a short span of two years, it has generated a revenue of over $30 million through its products and services under Blockchain for clients all over the world.

While blockchain technology is most commonly known for being the backbone of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency systems through its network that builds a secure and decentralized database without having the need for a trusted 3rd party for maintenance of records, the team at Xord realized that there is potential in the technology to be used for a lot more operations. Personal data stored on traditional centralized systems is very easily-corrupted and presents challenges for verification, and Xord aims to make all such systems in finance, asset management, and digital identity not only secure but also efficient and easier to use. They are committed to creating decentralized systems with blockchain technology to improve and simplify every-day processes across industries.

The use of blockchain technology is new to Pakistan, and so is the way Xord hopes to continue expanding and growing in this field, both of which being unconventional require a creative mindset that supports curiosity and an out-of-the-box thinking for critical thinking and problem solving in the future to bring about meaningful change.

“We’re working on something so new … that if we start hiring very experienced people, they won’t be the right fit for our company.”

The team at Xord believes that anyone has the capacity to learn new skills, and therefore their primary focus during their recruitment processes, is to look for individuals who exhibit inherent curiosity and willingness to learn and adapt. They firmly believe that one has to look outside of the current system to understand the system and challenge it, and at Xord, they train people with the skills to do so. The leadership at Xord does not believe in maintaining the traditional employee-employer relationship; instead, they cultivate a relationship based on trust, openness and honest communication.

Watch our full conversation with the founders of Xord as they talk about their journey of starting up, the promise of blockchain technology, the importance of curiosity, and their vision of building an honest world.