By Marianne Grace Sarmiento
THE Philippines has huge potential in honing technopreneurs and stimulating the diversity of innovation, an advisor to Uber Technologies Inc. said.
San Francisco-based Uber Advisor Steve Jang said that science and technology-based entrepreneurship ecosystem in the country is “promising.”
“What’s exciting right now in the Philippines is that there are a lot of college-educated people with engineering and technological skills who speak English fluently,” Jang told reporters in a news conference last week.
However, despite his optimism, Jang said that even with a good business plan and a great product, getting funding in the country is not easy. This is compared to other more developed countries like the United States, where there are programs and departments that fund start-ups, added Jang, who is also an angel investor.
But Philippine Development Foundation (PhilDev) Inc. Chairman Diosdado P. Banatao said among the trends that can be tapped by aspiring start-up companies is the growing digital platform.
Banatao said only 1 percent of the country’s small and medium businesses are online, citing data from Google Country Manager Ken Lingan during his talk on “Digitizing the Philippines.” This poses a huge opportunity for technopreneurs wanting to use the Internet to reach wider market for their services and be able to compete efficiently, Banato said.
However, he said that the Philippines still needs to improve on infrastructure. Banatao said there is a need to enhance Internet bandwidth. “Looking at the telcos [telecommunication companies] here, they are dependent on foreign suppliers. If we only follow what existing telcos do things [like] purchasing supplies from other countries, then we’re not really improving the capability or even affordability.”
Banatao added there has to be a “disruptive” approach in using technology. He defined disruptive as something that has never been done before that is much useful and makes the cost of the product cheaper. This must be scalable and must help solve important problems.
To facilitate entrepreneurship education among Filipinos, Banatao said PhilDev, together with the United States Agency for International Aid, signed an agreement with the Commission on Higher Education to develop a curriculum for entrepreneurship for college students. He said the curriculum will be tested in five universities.
Addressing the lack of qualified teachers to teach, PhilDev will also be sending professors to train in University of California Berkeley’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology. Last year they sent five and for this year, they will be sending at least 15 to 50 people, according to Banatao.
“Quality education is important to inspire young people to develop innovative solutions to the country’s problems,” Banatao said, adding these innovations can transform to business opportunities that can have positive impact on the national economic development.