SUCCESSFUL business owners and motivated start-up entrepreneurs will be sharing their life stories and tricks during a three-day camp program on life enrichment.
Opening on Thursday, the “Detour: Embracing Life’s Unexpected Turns” camp will bring together 150 campers to network and listen to successful company owners who have their share of life’s ups and downs.
The camp will take place in Antipolo and will have MyPhone Philippines President and founder David Lim; Zambawood owner and founder Rachel Harrison, Tralulu CEO and founder Andrew Cua, Cropital cofounder Rachel de Villa, Zalora Human Resources and Corporate Services head Flip Ruby, motivational speaker Francis Kong and Propel President Mary Jane Vega as resource persons.
“This is a kind of camp where they will be learning from the best in the industry. My goal in putting up Detour is to motivate and inspire young people to push with whatever dreams they have or, if they are having difficulties, they would know that there are also people who have experience it and were able to overcome it,” Vega said.
She added: “As much as possible, we want to go the straight path. Unfortunately, it does not happen that way most of the time. There are a lot of rerouting, a lot of roads to take, and that is what life is. We have a lot of detours.”
For budding social entrepreneurs like Cua and de Villa, the detour in their lives was coming up with a business that helps the local community, while infusing technology and enthusiasm from the youth today.
Tralulu is an online platform that lets travelers get connected with local tour guides and even book them in customized itineraries.
According to Cua what led to the creation of Tralulu is that local tour guides have difficulty getting a stable source of income due to the changing weather and travel seasons.
“Being a local guide is being one of the unsung heroes in our country. I see them as diplomats. They are the local ambassadors who can solve many of the problems of travelers when they are here in the Philippines. We decided to create a platform where they do not have to worry about marketing themselves. We want the locals to be financially sustainable and, at the same time, for them to give travelers the local experience that they want,” Cua said.
Meanwhile, de Villa’s Cropital is about empowering the locals. It is a crowdfunding platform aiming to finance farmers in the Philippines.
“It is really all about farmers. We do not have to be living in the rural areas just to know what our farmers are going through. They just live from day to day. So we want to connect our farmers to the world and involve everyone in alleviating poverty in the rural areas. We want to empower our farmers so they do not have to be living in debt,” de Villa said.
According to de Villa, a young age should not be a hindrance to starting a business, and young people should consider thinking of ways to do business that does not only profit oneself but help the community, as well.
