Lahore: How can a student turn an idea into an app that reaches millions of people? That question brought Google’s industry experts and Pakistan’s developer community to LUMS for Pehla Qadam: App Edition Bootcamp 2026, hosted by Google Developers Group Lahore at the LUMS Centre for Entrepreneurship (LCE).
LUMS Provost Dr. Tariq Jadoon welcomed the Google team and congratulated them on the opening of Google Pakistan’s first office in Karachi. Badar Khushnood, former Google Country Consultant and a Faculty Member at LUMS, facilitated Google Developers Group (GDG) Lahore’s efforts to host the event at LUMS.
The Google delegation was led by Emre Dogan, Farhan Qureshi and Fasieh Mehta, alongside specialist speakers and presenters who shared insights into app development, marketing, monetization and the growing role of artificial intelligence. The scale of the opportunity was a key theme throughout the bootcamp. According to Sensor Tower figures shared during the sessions, global spending on in-app purchases reached $167 billion in 2025, up 10.6% from the previous year. People downloaded around 149 billion apps worldwide and spent an estimated 5.3 trillion hours using them.
Pakistan has a place in this market. The presentations and talks highlighted local success stories, including Game District’s My Supermarket Simulator, which recorded more than 60 million year-to-date downloads, alongside other Pakistani studios reaching audiences around the world. For students preparing to graduate, the sessions offered a look at the opportunities beyond conventional career paths. A promising app needs more than a good idea. Developers must understand what people want, attract the right users, earn revenue and give customers a reason to return. Google speakers discussed these challenges through practical sessions on app marketing, advertising revenue, Google Play and AI-assisted development. A session on Google Antigravity explored how new AI tools can help developers build and test software faster.
The takeaway was clear: a product built in Pakistan can find an audience far beyond its home market. With the right skills and a sound business model, an idea from a university project or a small startup could become a product used around the world. Pehla Qadam brought these possibilities closer to Lahore’s student and developer community, creating space to learn from industry experience and consider what comes next.
The next successful app could start with an idea in a Lahore classroom! Beyond Pehla Qadam, the visiting Google delegation is set to engage with a range of audiences across Pakistan through several other events during the trip. These include Think Apps, Google's flagship event focused on the app ecosystem, and Pakistan's first-ever YouTube Festival, celebrating the country's growing creator community and digital content landscape.