‘Hapinoy’ gets US$25,000 grant from Projectinspire

MANILA, Philippines—Further boosting the Philippines reputation as a hothouse of sound and innovative micro-venture ideas, the Hapinoy Program by MicroVentures Philippines Inc. bested nine other finalists to win the top grant of US$25,000 in the ProjectInspire’s “5 Minutes to Change the World.”

MicroVentures president Paolo Benigno ‘Bam’ Aquino IV made his winning pitch at the ProjectInspire finals held on August 24 at INSEAD’s Singapore campus, the Philippine Embassy in Singapore reported.

The finals saw the field whittled down to 10 from out of 450 entries from more than 50 countries all over the world in the form of a five-minute video or written pitch posted online between March and June 2011.

Hapinoy, which was submitted by Aquino together with Michelle Pabalan and Mark Ruiz, aims to empower women micro-entrepreneurs in Southern Luzon by helping existing variety store owners by linking them up to a unified retail network.

This enables the stores to operate more efficiently and sell products more cheaply, while also creating a market for local producers who would otherwise find it difficult to sell their goods in larger retail platforms.

Aquino and the other finalists delivered their final pitches before a seven-member panel of judges, headed by INSEAD Affiliate Professor of Entrepreneurship Patrick Turner, and included MasterCard Worldwide President for Asia/Pacific, Middle East & Africa Vicky Bindra, and UN Women East and Southeast Asia Regional Office Representative and Regional Programme Director Moni Pizani, among others.

Ambassador Minda Calaguian-Cruz attended the finals to support Aquino’s team and another finalist from the Philippines, Back to the Roots: Women’s Empowerment through Community Farming, by Erika Rey Saturay.

The Hapinoy team will now have the opportunity to expand their project using the US$25,000 grant, and will be monitored on their progress.

Two other projects, the UPLift Initiative from Thailand and Painting the Road to Empowerment from India, won US$10,000 each for being the Best Financial Literacy/Livelihood proposal and the Most Creative Community Outreach proposal, respectively.

The initiative was sponsored by UN Women’s National Committee Singapore and MasterCard.