Gotianun-led Filinvest Development Corp. (FDC) said it has partnered with a Silicon Valley tech firm to promote innovation in the Philippine property sector as it anticipates changes in consumer behavior following the three-month lockdown.
FDC has signed an agreement with Plug and Play to develop and promote new services for the real estate and smart living sectors through a collaboration program with global start-ups.
FDC President and CEO L. Josephine Gotianun-Yap said she hopes that the partnership will benefit Filinvest’s customers, employees and partners and solve “real business challenges.”
“For instance, I recently talked about how drone inspection of Filinvest projects and properties will allow us to perform checks of various locations while safeguarding the health of our people. This kind of innovative and practical solution, along with other noncontact tech-enabled interactions in our properties, will not only be helpful during this time when community quarantine are in place, but also in a post-Covid-19 setting,” said Yap.
“We see that smart, digital technologies will drive the future of the property industry. We want to leverage tech as much as possible to transform our business, engage our customers and locators, as well as help make a lasting positive impact to the local communities.”
Filinvest’s entry into technology-driven investments and businesses started at the conglomerate level last year, with the company rallying its top leaders to map out opportunities in their respective units to help transform them into digital businesses.
Filinvest also formalized its intent to invest in technology-driven opportunities by setting up a unit called f(dev).
Plug and Play was founded in 2006 and acts as a platform for start-ups and corporations to meet with each other. It has programs in over 20 locations globally giving startups the necessary resources to succeed in Silicon Valley and beyond.
With over 10,000 startups and 300 official corporate partners, it has created the ultimate start-up ecosystem in many industries—providing active investments with 200 leading Silicon Valley venture capitalists and host more than 700 networking events per year.