Filipino innovators gear up for Silicon Valley via ON3

MANILA, Philippines - Armed with a prototype that is set to change modern life, six groups of homegrown innovators were hailed recently as the top finalists of the ON3 2012 Pitching Competition held coinciding with this year’s National Science and Technology Week of the Department of Science and Technology at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City.

The ON3 Pitching Competition, organized by no less than the Science and Technology Advisory Council-Silicon Valley (STAC-Silicon Valley), is a start-up tech search and business plan competition that is conducted in various locations across the country.

The finalists were SpellDial, X2Wave, Groupjump, Miimove, Guestlist.ph, and Payroll Hero, all of which pitched their ideas in front of industry professionals and specialists, including Novare Technologies general manager Kenneth Palacios.

The six finalists will undergo mentoring program with ON3 until December.

During this program, a selection process based on certain milestones will be done for the final three that will represent the Philippines in Silicon Valley (SV) in California and compete with all other start-ups for funding from SV venture capital firms.

The ON3 competition has been supported by Novare Technologies through the years. Novare Technologies is a global provider of strategic consulting and IT services to leading financial services and telecommunication companies.

“We want to encourage people to innovate. We want them not just to be users of technology but also builders of technology. We want them to build their own companies, craft their own models and be successful,” said Myla Villanueva, CEO of Novare Technologies.

Aside from supporting ON3, Villanueva also gives support to deserving Filipino start-ups through direct investments of Wireless Wings, a P111-million Angel Fund she started last Jan. 11.

Novare espouses the same entrepreneurial spirit that STAC-SV has, especially in terms of aiming to instill among budding technopreneurs the mindset of having their innovations contribute to nation building, as well as to the country’s socio-economic progress.

The chosen business plans that are on their way to the world’s largest technology hub range from communication solutions (SpellDial and Groupjump); iPhone, iPad or Facebook applications (Miimove and Guestlist.ph); health care research (X2Wave); to software programs that aim to help companies monitor their employees’ attendance (Payroll Hero).

Payroll Hero is a solution that can be used by companies for their employees’ attendance, time, schedule, and payroll to avoid buddy punching and ghost employees, while SpellDial is an application that aims to change the way the world connects with one another, by allowing people to dial names instead of numbers.  

Other solutions are Miimove, an iPhone application that serves as a portal for sports enthusiasts to be coached by experts via their smartphones, and Groupjump, an interface that allows individuals to maintain a long list of contacts where they can securely and privately collaborate and communicate at anytime, anywhere.

Meanwhile, Guestlist.ph is an application that provides the easiest way to get in the best clubs, bars, and lounges in the Philippines for free, and X2Wave is an information technology research and development company with focus on health care-related markets.