Learn more from Asia, earn more with technology

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. — Steve Jobs

Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth. — Peter F. Drucker

After the economic crisis of the world’s biggest economic power USA last year, Europe is now facing economic turmoil brought about by the shocking overspending and over-borrowing of the so-called PIIGS nations of Portugal, Iceland, Ireland, Greece and Spain. This writer is concerned that our primetime TV news and many local newspapers (except for the Philippine STAR, which has a strong foreign news section) are overly fixated on our local political news to the detriment of important international news like the ongoing euro crisis.

Why is it that I have never heard any of our so-called leaders talking about the euro crisis and its possible impact on the Philippine economy, or what we can do to protect our economy and find ways to benefit from it?

Problematic Europe and uncertain USA are still very important to the Philippines, but I urge our leaders and mass media to help our society to focus more also on our increasingly technologically-advanced Asian neighbors like Asean, China, next-door Taiwan, South Korea, India and others. The future of the world is in Asia, we in the Philippines should not miss the boat!

I urge the major TV networks GMA 7, ABS-CBN 2, TV 5 and others to feature more local and foreign economic news, so that Philippine society can think more about the imperatives of economic development, personal financial success and of business rather than just petty crimes, nonstop political bickering and gossip.

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One of my unforgettable interviews with a business tycoon was the late Enrique Zobel at his one-hectare residence in Ayala Alabang, and this former strong-willed and visionary boss of the Ayala conglomerate told me to write that the Philippines should look more and learn from Asia and China, not to keep on aping the United States or Europe. He said we are a developing nation and we have more similarities to our Asian neighbors, even if the Philippines was a former colony of Spain for 333 years, and of America for half a century.

Recently over lunch at the café of his Crowne Plaza Hotel in Ortigas Center, Pasig City, the 83-year-old JG Summit Holdings Founder John Gokongwei, Jr. also echoed the sentiments of Zobel, that the Philippines should hopefully learn more from the socio-economic, cultural and other aspects of China and Asian countries for our own Philippine future and not look too much to the West. He had just come from a business trip to Shanghai and visited his 40 Gokongwei China scholars now studying in Fudan University.

These scholars are outstanding college graduates from all over the Philippines, future leaders whom he hope could learn from the 5,000-year-old rich civilization, Confucian values and the ongoing economic miracle of China that will benefit Philippine progress. I can’t wait to go to Shanghai to see the ongoing World Expo there, so I can see how progressive China is now and how competitive the rest of the world’s countries are becoming in terms of technological advancements and trade.

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An example of an Asian country from which the Philippines can learn a lot is the economic miracle of Israel, which is the only vibrant democracy in the Middle East. Small population, threatened by wars and resource-poor, Israel produces more innovative start-up firms than big nations like Britain, Japan, India, South Korea or Canada. Israel is a world leader in technological innovation. This writer is reading the book Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, which is very interesting.

Coincidentally, I recently attended a fascinating seminar at Mandarin Oriental Hotel by top American dermatologist Dr. Michael H. Gold, who explained a new high-tech technology for skincare and repair called “Sublative Rejuvenation” by Syneron and distributed in the country by Spectrumed, led by Israeli businessman Doron Glazer.

This Israeli technology helps patients who are increasingly requesting skin rejuvenation treatments that promise improved appearance — but with minimal downtime and lower procedure cost. Dr. Gold and Glazer said that one of the first beauty clinics to adopt this state-of-the-art technology is Dr. Vicki Belo’s group of clinics.

Dr. Gold teaches at Fudan University in Shanghai and also in a big hospital in Shenyang City of northeast China. He said that the beauty business is booming all over China, because 10 percent of the population — or nearly 150 million people by his estimate — are affluent middle-class.

Dr. Gold said, “China has an amazing economy, it’s very progressive.” Their beauty clinics are also adopting the sublative rejuvenation technology.

When asked to assess the growth potential of the seemingly highly-profitable beauty care business in the Philippines, Doron Glazer said it is very big and robust. Our beauty entrepreneurs are already doing very well, and the Philippines has not yet fully tapped the even bigger potential of medical tourism similar to that of our now troubled Asean neighbor Thailand.

When I asked how much one machine of the sublative rejevanation will cost, Flazer laughed and replied: “About the cost of a BMW car. Are you buying one?”

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One of the challenges of our Philippine society is how we can leverage the advantages of Internet innovations for socio-economic development and for personal success. 

Recently, this writer had lunch with Multiply.com executive chairman Claudio Pinkus, where he revealed that their website is shifting to become more of an online marketplace. Though they have lost ground to popular social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, he said Multiply.com is different in that it is “the best in storing photos and videos” while retaining the social network functions.

He said under the leadership of media tycoon Eugenio “Gabby” Lopez III, ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. has invested in six percent of the shareholdings of this privately-held tech business.

Of Multiply.com’s total 19 million users worldwide, Pinkus said that the Philippines has four million users, Indonesia has five million users, Brazil has also a lot of users, plus USA. He said it took them one year of discussions before ABS-CBN invested in Multiply.com. He claims that Multiply.com is today “the second largest social network site in Southeast Asia and with a shopping destination function too.”

My question is this: when will local information technology (IT) wizards and entrepreneurs come up with our own local versions of Multiply.com, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Google and other Internet sites that could earn them and the Philippine economy megabucks? In China, they have their own local wonders like Baidu.com and many others.

I do not believe the Philippines — with our huge pool of English-speaking IT and engineering talents, booming call centers and business process outsource (BPO) centers — cannot compete with the Indians, the Argentinians or Venezuelans in IT or Internet businesses.

I challenge incoming President Noynoy Aquino and his government to bring the Philippine economy to new heights of global competitiveness in the IT and Internet businesses.

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