Stanford students prospecting on Philippine start-ups

IdeaSpace Foundation President Earl Valencia pitches Philippine start-ups to future CEOs and VCs at Satnford University. Harvey I. Barkin

STANFORD UNIVERSITY – Stanford students who may one day be CEOs and VCs are following Philippine and other Asian start-ups. Thanks to Electrical Engineering elective EE-402T.

Dr. Richard Dasher, Consulting Professor and Director of US-Asia Technology Management Center told Inquirer.net, “Master’s students in various engineering fields, a few undergrads, MBAs and a law student are interested in doing business in Asia; some are even interested in starting their own.”

Dasher also said, “The Philippines is getting great work outsourcing and that involves a combination of English language skill and also technical knowledge, especially in software.  I think the Philippines is a recipient of customer service outsourcing and software development outsourcing. China and Vietnam still lead in manufacturing outsourcing.”

“I’m especially interested in what Earl is doing – focusing on the opportunities and needs of the Philippines and other emerging markets because outsourcing is ultimately a problematic industry for continued economic growth.”

Dasher is referring to President of IdeaSpace Foundation, Earl Martin Valencia, who spoke to aspiring CEOs and VCs on campus recently.

For his part, Valencia painted a sober picture of the Philippines. He revealed that the country is among the fastest growing Asian nation with healthy financial markets and a credit rating that has been graded worthy of foreign investment since 2003. In terms of actual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rating in 2012, Malaysia is first with US$303.5 billion; Singapore second with US$274.7 billion; and the Philippines third with US$250.3 billion.

But alongside these, the Philippines still suffers from inequality despite a growing economy, inefficient transportation system and the number one disaster-prone region rating from the UN.

Valencia also revealed the difficulty of locating local talents and entrepreneurs with only 30 percent effective use of the Internet, having to contend with radio as the alternative outreach medium and having to go on more flights than road trips to comb 7,107 islands whose population is more interested in entertainment than entrepreneurship.

Resorting to extraordinary measures to find talents, IdeaSpace Boot camps set up in Manila, Santa Rosa, Laoag, Puerto Princesa, Davao, General Santos, Naga, Tacloban, Bacolod, Cebu, Iloilo, Baguio, and even in Kuala Lumpur, areas in Indonesia and Singapore. A million pesos in investment went into seed funding, mentoring and training, IP protection and government support and office (most likely in Makati) and living (around Metro-Manila) spaces for meetings of technical and business minds.

Silicon Valley-style presentation was taught to inventors and innovators who were used to getting the door slammed on their faces by large banks requiring collateral. IdeaSpace also ended the era of same-last-name-as-the-owner qualification to empower the mostly young and student innovators who only have original ideas and could not get into the family-monopoly giant corporations in the Philippines.

From the initial works of Dado Banatao, STAC-Silicon Valley, then Trade Commissioner Michael Ignacio and other mentors and VCs, IdeaSpace reaped about 700 submissions with 70 per cent applications in mobile, consumer business and digital media space.

But the first 10 to receive early stage incubation from IdeaSpace include innovations like: water purification system using nanotechnology, an energy start-up developing a more efficient windmill design and the development of prosthetic joints for (and which will fit) the Asian market.

Nevertheless, some of IdeaSpace’s start-ups are already earning revenues, have been launched or are at the patent filed stages.

Among the revenue earners are: PinoyTravel – a long distance bus reservation system allowing consumers to book seats on-line, TimeFree Innovation – a virtual queuing solution helping businesses improve customer service through SMS notification, reports and analytics and ZipMatch – a real estate site using proprietary lead generation technology.

Already launched are: PortfolioMNL – a web portal allowing the global market to view portfolios of and hire Filipino creative professionals, internME – a web portal enhancing an employer’s ability to identify and hire high-quality interns, Tudlo – an award-winning disaster awareness and management app and OrangeApps – an educational technology start-up running a learning platform to help users gain industry relevant skills.

Still at pilot phase are: MobKard – a mobile loyalty app enabling merchants to create real time, location-based and relevant promotions to target large customer segments and DMAP (or Dengue Mapping and Awareness Portal) – an app providing accurate, real time visualization and notification of dengue cases to help communities respond and avoid the transmittable disease.

Coming soon, after patents are processed: ArthroLogic – soon to be FDA-approved app specializing in more economical Asian-fit knee replacement using a two-component knee design, WeGen – an award-winning wind turbine design that captures 50 per cent more power and withstanding extreme weather conditions and KineticStrips – when installed at major thoroughfares, harvests residual kinetic energy from vehicles slowing down and coverts the free energy into marketable electricity.

According to Valencia, in only two years, about 150,000 students and professionals have attended multi-awarded IdeaSpace talks, 18 investments were made across multiple industries and five patents were filed this year.

Small wonder, Valencia said, that IdeaSpace is up to par with global standard startup accelerators like TechStars, 500 Startups Accelerator, Y Combinator and Harvard University’s Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships.

Before IdeaSpace, Valencia was Business Incubation Manager at Cisco. Previous to that he was a Senior Systems Engineer at Raytheon Space and Airborne systems. Valencia also worked for VC firms and is the head of corporate development at Smart Communications. Valencia has a degree in Electrical Engineering, Summa Cum Laude from Boston University, a Masters in Systems Engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. He was named one of the top 40 leaders focused on economic development in the Philippines.

Valencia “showed up in (Dasher’s) radar “when Valencia and Dasher spoke at the Philippine consulate some months ago. Dasher also put up programs on Mexico, Brazil, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore.

Dasher’s parting shot: “I don’t know how the Philippines will compare to India. But I think the Philippines is well positioned to find and grab early emerging market opportunities that leverage cloud-based IT storage, processing and analysis. This has less to do with outsourcing than it does with taking a look at the needs in the Philippines. At the same time, if the Philippines looks at these emerging market opportunities with the possibility of international or even global expansion, it will be even more successful. India is a huge scale. The world IT companies there have already established a strong reputation over a number of years. It will just take a bit more time for the Philippines to achieve its own potential.”

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