CLARK FREEPORT – Armtech, a three-man team from Angeles and Mabalacat cities, that pitched a technology-based business idea for an affordable water purification machine for households, was recognized as the most viable in a field of 10 technology start-ups that won up to P5 million in funding in a national search conducted by IdeaSpace Foundation, Inc., the business incubator backed by industry leaders from companies under the First Pacific Company Ltd., Metro Pacific Investments, and the PLDT group.
Armtech’s Reinell Cunanan, and Moses Guevarra from Angeles City and Alvin Layva from adjacent Mabalacat City were recognized for their inventions at the Macau Room of Widus Hotel here last Friday.
Armtech came up with a compact, lightweight and low-cost water purification machine using a unique technology that kills harmful microorganisms without the complexities of conventional water purifiers.
The team joins nine other teams that will be incubated by IdeaSpace. They will receive six months business incubation and initial funding of P500,000 each.
They will also receive mentoring, support, services and grants from IdeaSpace partners with an estimated worth of P2 million to scale up their business. On top of these all teams can get additional investments of up to P5 million each within the incubation period.
IdeaSpace will also link the teams to potential investors in the Philippines, Silicon Valley and other parts of the world.
IdeaSpace partners Amazon, Asian Institute of Management, Freelancer.com, Ionics, IPO Philippines, Microsoft Philippines, Adamson University and the University of the Philippines-Open University will also provide services, mentoring and assistance.
The winners were chosen from among 700 entries from all over the Philippines, a record number for a local technology or start-up business competition. After several levels of screening, they were awarded right after the final pitching and judging event at the First Pacific Leadership Academy in Antipolo last April 5.
The panel of judges for the final screening was led by Manuel V. Pangilinan, Managing Director and CEO of First Pacific and included Jose Ma. K. Lim, president and CEO of Metro Pacific; Ricardo Blancaflor, director general of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines; Orlando V. Vea, president and CEO of Digitel Communications and Chief Wireless Advisor of Smart Communications, Inc.; Johan Hellstam Segergren, Philippines and Thailand Country manager of Google Enterprise; and Lawrence Goh, Chief Information Adviser for PLDT and Smart. Edward A. Tortorici, executive director of First Pacific and executive Advisor at Metro Pacific joined the judging panel online. SGV & Co. provided tabulation and auditing services.
The other winners were: DateCola (Davao City/ General Santos City) – natural date-enriched beverages, a healthy alternative to soft drinks; Mirand (Metro Manila) – low-cost and high-quality total joint implants for the Asian market; PGRS (Metro Manila) – produces electricity via rumble strips installed on high traffic roads; PinoyTravel (Metro Manila) – provincial bus seat reservation system using mobile technologies; PortfolioMNL (Metro Manila) – online marketplace for creative professionals; Prodigo (Metro Manila) – a solution for highly targeted promotions for merchants using Big Data analytics; Tech4Health (Metro Manila) – solution for health monitoring of chronic conditions, including diabetes; TimeFree (Zamboanga) – SMS-based automated queuing system; andWeGen (Sorsogon) – new design of wind turbine that is more efficient than current technology;
“All the finalists were equally impressive but these ten teams emerged as winners. We’re excited for our first batch of incubatees. Our job now is to help them become investable businesses at par with global standards,” said Earl Martin S. Valencia, IdeaSpace president.
“We have seen such an amazing diversity of ideas from our competition’s first run. What is common is that they all pose innovative and disruptive solutions to market needs. It’s a strong statement for science, technology and business,” he added.
Six of the winners were from Metro Manila, two from Mindanao, one from Central Luzon and one from Bicol region – reflecting the geographical spread of science and technology business idea potentials in the country.
The first batch of IdeaSpace funded start-ups show a mix of hardware, mobile and software solutions for various industries such as agriculture, energy, ICT, healthcare, media, telco and transportation.
IdeaSpace targets early stage funding for aspiring technology entrepreneurs or technopreneurs with potentially innovative or disruptive business ideas or start-ups with minimum viable products seeking additional boost to propel them to commercial launch level.
