Aspiring inventors, innovators urged to join cooperative

MANILA, Philippines - Are you an aspiring inventor or innovator with an exciting idea but have difficulty turning your concept into reality?

Then go to the Filipino Inventors Society Producer Cooperative (FISPC).

Francisco Pagayon, FISPC chairman, told The STAR that their door is wide open to struggling inventors and innovators.

“The most important thing we can immediately give them is advice if their ideas have a chance of becoming commercially viable,” Pagayon said.

“If we think the ideas have potential, we can guide them in doing their first prototype. We can also assist them in filing for patents, among other things involved in the business of innovation,” said Pagayon, who developed the probaton (police reconnaissance operation baton) used by millions of policemen and village watchmen all over the country.

Pagayon has come up with other inventions in his career spanning four decades.

According to Pagayon, the FISPC’s membership roster boasts of successful inventors who have gained wisdom from their individual experiences of hardships and failures.

Meanwhile, Pagayon’s long-time collaborator in several inventions and fellow FISPC member, Teodorico Castañeda II, said to make even the most brilliant idea a resounding commercial success would entail a long journey and would need the help of others.

“Like us, we had partnered in a number of projects because we needed the expertise of each other in turning ideas into actual prototypes. In our case, I come up with ideas while he is the one dealing with the technical side of designing the prototype. Then we work on actual production and mass production,” Pagayon said.

Their tandem came out with several education-related inventions in the 1980s.

They had sold to schools ambidextrous armchairs and a replicator multiplex printing machine that can print on any material.

They gained huge profits from their inventions, until the emergence of the computer.

Pagayon and Castañeda said that in serving as mentors to inventors, the FISPC is filling the void left by the Philippine Invention Development Institute (PIDI) of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

PIDI was abolished in 2003.

Both said that PIDI’s replacement, the Technology Application and Promotion Institute (TAPI), is not living up to its predecessor’s performance.

“The PIDI was an agency that was very helpful to Filipino inventors,” Castañeda said.

“I myself can attest to that. They helped me all the way – starting from the idea, researching on the viability and feasibility of the project, and also in the prototyping,” added Castaneda, who came up with the Unicanova chess set.

Accessible headquarters

The FISPC has headquarters at the Delta Building in Quezon City, which also serves as a showroom of FISPC products.

Pagayon said the advice they give to aspiring inventors is free.

If the aspiring inventor successfully develops his idea into a patented invention and brings it to the market, he can be tapped to join the FISPC and benefit further from the pooling of resources of inventors.

Aside from his probaton invention, Pagayon recently developed the multi-purpose solar power lighting system kit, which costs P30,000 a set.

Pagayon said the FISPC is aggressive in transforming a society of inventors into a registered cooperative.

The move got a boost when they were joined by cooperative expert Andy Reyes last year.

Reyes is an innovator who came up with a fly-repellant for tobacco plants using mosquito droppings.

“A cooperative now has so many requirements to get Cooperative Development Authority (CDA)  registration,” Reyes said.

However, he said that registration brings a lot of benefits, and accreditation removes all doubt about credentials.

Pagayon said they were eyeing FISPC to become an independent unit that can help the government accredit inventors.

“But we will also help accredited inventors get accepted into the cooperative,” he said, adding that one program that they are looking at is the “classification and categorization of a Filipino inventor.”

“From their categorization, we can determine what assistance they need – either in commercial scaling or maybe in research and development packaging,” Pagayon said.

“We will have matching: what are the agencies and organizations we can tap to address the needs of the inventor on the technical aspect,” he said.

Last month, the FISPC conducted its first biennial elections where Pagayon was elected chairman of the board and Reyes as general manager.

The FISPC has also started an “Ugnayan Kooperatiba” program to establish a nationwide link of cooperatives which will allow the FISPC to tap other cooperatives to promote and sell the products of their member-inventors and innovators.

In line with this, they started a Sunday afternoon radio program on dzRBRadyo ng Bayan featuring different cooperatives.

Based on the records of the CDA, as of December 2013, there are 23,672 registered cooperatives nationwide with combined assets of P266.8 billion and with a total volume of business of P437.6 billion.