PLDT foundation names winners of start-up tilt

MANILA, Philippines - IdeaSpace, a non-profit foundation supported by dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), has awarded 10 start-up companies with P500,000 in initial funding and other benefits after edging 600 competitors.

PLDT chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said in an interview with reporters on the sidelines of the awarding ceremonies of the IdeaSpace 2013 National Competition Finals that the company was satisfied with the turnout as contestants came from different parts of the country.

“It’s quite impressive. I think three or four of them actually presented inventions, and not just IT-related innovation. We made sure that the choices are not biased on the kind of companies that we own,” he added.

Facing a tough panel of judges that included Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan himself, 10 teams from all over the Philippines emerged as the initial incubatees of IdeaSpace, out of more than 600 entries received by the incubation hub in the past year.

Winners included Armtech from Angeles City with low cost water purification machine for households; DateCola from Davao with natural date enriched beverages; Mirand/AsianFit from Metro Manila with low-cost and high-quality total joint implants for the Asian market; PGRS of Metro Manila with electricity via rumble strips installed on high traffic roads; and PinoyTravel from Metro Manila with provincial bus seat reservation system using mobile technologies.

The other winners included Portfolio MNL from Metro Manila with online marketplace for creative professionals; Prodigo, from Manila with a solution for highly targeted promotions for merchants using Big Data analytics; Tech4Health from Manila with solution for health monitoring of chronic conditions, including diabetes; TimeFree from Zamboanga with SMS-based automated queuing system; and WeGen from Sorsogon with a new design of wind turbine that is more efficient than current technology.

Other finalists included Lost Meets Found from Cebu, FindmyDok from Davao, DepED Smart Cloud from Angeles, SafeCab from Cebu, Fishpond Management System from Manila, Summarize and Notify from Leyte and Manila, miCab from Cebu, Corner Data from Manila, Nambal.com from Cebu, and Tudlo emergency and disaster app from Cebu.

The finalists came from different parts of the country reflecting the growing public interest in science and technology space and the incubator’s wide reach for its technopreneurship advocacy program.

Likewise, majority of the finalists were mobile and software solutions for various industries such as energy, agriculture, transportation, and healthcare.

Pangilinan stressed the need for the winners to address the legal aspect of building and expanding their business as stated by one of the judges Intellectual Property Office chief Ricardo Blancaflor.

“A number of them have to look at the legal aspects of what they’re doing. These are the kind of things that they would now have to think about,” the PLDT chief said.

IdeaSpace said the winners’ funding could be increased to up to P5 million upon graduation from the incubator, depending on the new company’s needs and other benefits such as mentorship from key executives, an office space in Makati City, among others.

IdeaSpace is a non-profit foundation supported by the largest and most diverse group of companies which include PLDT, Smart, First Pacific Investments, Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC), Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation (MTPC), MPIC hospital group, Meralco, Digitel, Sun Cellular, SPI Global, ePLDT, Indofood, Philex Mining, Maynilad, MediaQuest and TV5.