IdeaSpace Foundation looks for ‘next big idea’

When orthopedic surgeon Dr. Rene Catan introduced to his fellow doctors some years back his plan to manufacture a local joint replacement, it was dismissed as a “backyard project.” When he presented it to a group of physicians last week, they snapped up shares, even at P12,000 apiece, of the company he built to bring his idea to life.

The difference? Catan won last year a nationwide competition for startup ideas conducted by the IdeaSpace Foundation, the largest privately-backed technology incubator in the Philippines. IdeaSpace has a P500-million fund for five years, pooled together from the resources of Manuel V. Pangilinan’s group of companies.

Catan’s project was borne out of frustration — of the increasing number of people who need joint replacements every year, only about two percent get it because the process is expensive. Parts for the total knee replacement can cost up to P150,000, not counting the costs of the procedure, medicines and other related expenses.

The Cebuano doctor designed a knee replacement that will be manufactured in the Philippines. When he shared his idea with other doctors, most were skeptical and dismissive. One smirked and scoffed at the idea of the Philippines manufacturing such a medical product.

Dr Rene Catan of Arthrologic

PAIN POINT, LITERALLY. Dr. Rene Catan talks about his product – a locally-designed and manufactured knee replacement. (Photo by Max Limpag)

After he won the IdeaSpace competition, where his team of doctors was the oldest and most applauded in a field composed of hackers and geeks young enough to be their children, Catan was able to move forward with his idea.

Now valued at P250 million

The company he founded, Arthrologic, is now valued by a third-party company at P250 million, he said in an interview last week. Word is quickly spreading around. Catan said doctors approached him the day after his presentation in Cebu to ask why he did not invite them to his briefing for potential new investors.

“We are not just making and selling the part,” said Catan, “we are assisting with the entire process from planning, pre-operation, surgery, post-operation and physical therapy.”

And from four hours of surgery needed for traditional imported prostheses, Arthrologic’s replacement only requires one-and-a-half hours. It also offers quicker recovery with patients able to go home, walking he said, after a few days.

The biggest benefits are the 50 percent cut in the cost of prostheses and the better quality of living after the operation because the parts were designed to fit Asians. With traditional replacements, Catan said “we have been putting oblong prostheses in circular knees.” This explained why some would still complain of pains after undergoing surgeries.

“Better fit, better range of motion”

Since he designed his knee replacement with fewer parts and on an Asian physique, the quality of movement is good. Their solution offers “better fit and a better range of motion.”

“Part of their fear is whether they could still kneel or squat. Squatting is not an activity that’s common among Caucasians,” he said, “Our patients should be able to squat and kneel like those with natural knees.”

His demo video showed an old woman with bent legs, walking or dragging her feet in pain because of severe osteoarthritis. He said the woman, who used to work as a seamstress but was forced to turn to running a sari-sari store to make a living because of the disease, wouldn’t have been able to afford the traditional joint replacement. Catan’s after-surgery photo is of the woman joining a Zumba class.

“We are in the business of improving lives by restoring mobility,” he said.

“Doctors are excited”

He said an estimated 80,000 Filipinos have osteoarthritis so severe they need surgery. But every year, only 1,500 surgeries are performed. Catan said his company hopes to help bridge that gap with their solution. They have so far used it on 18 patients and the feedback has been very good. “The doctors are excited,” he said.

Catan said they are looking to go beyond the country. Joint replacements are a $30-billion global market because of the epidemic of osteoarthritis with an aging population. Catan said that what was crucial to his idea moving forward was the backing of the IdeaSpace Foundation. Apart from seed funding and incubation support, the foundation’s network of companies provided legitimacy to his project.

In an interview after they were announced winners last year, Catan said their experience showed that “it’s never too late to chase your dreams.” He encouraged those with startup ideas to pursue these.

IdeaSpace, meanwhile, is currently accepting applications until January 15 for the next round of ideas that will be supported. Goldy Yancha, of IdeaSpace community development, said they already received about 300 submissions as of last week. She advised those who will be sending applications to closely look into market need of their ideas, saying this is key in the selection.

“We are particular on impact — it’s all about nation-building. Nation building by empowering people to run businesses, creating productivity and profit in the country and creating jobs,” Yancha said.

The post IdeaSpace Foundation looks for ‘next big idea’ appeared first on Leon Kilat : The Tech Experiments.

Looking ahead: 2014 in tech, startups

Over the holidays, I’d often find our youngest kid, 10-year-old Lennon, hunched on the sofa watching YouTube episodes of a cartoon series on the phone. Once in a while I’d offer to download the episodes for him so he could watch it on TV. “Naah,” he’d say. Watching on the phone was enough for him.

Look around and you’ll see people, mostly the young, starting to use phones and tablets more and more for most anything – playing games, watching videos, listening to music, reading stuff and connecting through social networks.

Will 2014 be the year of the mobile shift – when more people use portable devices rather than desktops to access the Internet – in the Philippines? It has happened in many countries abroad. But are we there yet? I think momentum is building for the shift but 2014 may be a bit too soon. Give it a year or two.

The mobile revolution will be an exciting and disruptive time that will have profound implications across industries. It is this mobile shift and how we seize the opportunities that come with it that I look forward to the most this year.

But for IdeaSpace Foundation, Inc. president and co-founder Earl Martin Valencia, mobility will not just mean mobile devices but “new form factors like wearables, cars, clothing and the like.”

Convergence

“I am hot on true convergence, where the digital and physical spaces collide, so I am out for sensor-based analytics for agriculture, health, transport, hardware technologies,” he said when asked in an interview about the big opportunity for the year.

Valencia sees this year as the “breakout year for our community, when we then translate the potential into actual.” IdeaSpace picked and incubated its first batch of startups last year.

“2014 should be the year when we all push to accelerate the growth of our ecosystem to attract more people to pursue startups and foreign investors to take a more serious look in funding locally-grown companies,” Valencia said.

For TechTalks.ph founder Tina Amper, 2014 will offer “a great opportunity for those who are interested to take advantage of numerous events, competitions, tech developments and opportunities to develop their tech and business skills or careers or start a business.”

Cebu hackathon

CEBU HACKATHON. Cebu developers work on their projects during a hackathon at the Exist Tech Bar in IT Park to build projects to help the country deal with destruction wrought by super typhoon Yolanda. (Photo by Max Limpag)

Cebu is booming

“Philippines is booming. Cebu is booming. Opportunities abound. Do something. Ride the wave,” said Amper, who was among the earliest community organizers credited for kickstarting the local startups community in this part of the country.

Amper said she saw startups that “have evolved, pivoted and gained traction” and there were some highs and lows but “lots of lessons learned.” “Applying those lessons, keeping their heads up, being proactive and persevering are key to those who already started,” she said.

Amper said she hopes to see this year government and business stepping up and using technology to improve services like transportation, online business licenses and online tracking services to cut corruption.

Amper sees an opportunity for the youth “to use their energy and great ideas to explore new careers” like being social media managers, community managers, brand managers, web designers, software developers and game developers. “IT does not only mean call center. It could also mean these new, high-paying and fun careers!” she said.

Amper said we should start aspiring for “world-class and efficient processes.”

International hub

“Cebu is becoming an international hub. Let the locals continue to improve and meet global standards so we can earn global-standard compensation. I have many guests from abroad who land in Cebu to do business. They are impressed with our hard-working, friendly, English-speaking workforce and want to live and do business here,” she said, “But they are frustrated with Filipino time, sub-standard service, flaky employees, unreliable infrastructure (Internet/phone). Some of these things are easier to fix than others. Let’s push for continuous improvement.”

For Exist president and CEO Jerry Rapes, the tech community needs to “start producing concrete results. We need to see more apps go online, gain users and feedback, get products funded and create more success stories.‎”

Rapes said the local tech and startup community “has been activated aggressively the past 24 months” but we need to sustain interest and momentum.”

“I believe the startup community becomes effective when it uses tech to solve pain points. Pain points can be very complex or very day-to-day. If we focus on solving these pain points we will stumble on the ‘big thing,’” he said.

Focus on enterprise

“Exist is very focused on helping the enterprise involved in healthcare, finance, telco and retail solve their pain points. We’re not anymore an outsourced development team, we’re working on becoming a solution provider for the digital transformation of the enterprise,” he said.

Industry veteran Mark John Buenconsejo, meanwhile, expects 2014 to see the local startup community “continuing to push the initiatives that we have set out a few years back.”

Startup Weekend events will continue, the pitching competitions organized by the local seed funds will be there and perhaps a few funding rounds by local startups. There were already a few that got funded last year and that gave our country some exposure about the potential of startups here,” he said.

Buenconsejo, who is co-founder and CEO of CareSharing, is among Cebu’s first startup successes. He sees “discovery” as a big opportunity.

Growing markets

“In the Philippines it’s particularly exciting since there are still a lot of legacy industries. One particular product play is discovery. It might look like Google is leading in the online search business but there are still a lot of niches where people still need a better way to discover stuff. Discovery is a strategic step, since once something can easily be discovered online, it opens up more opportunities to grow,” he said.

“The big opportunity can come from markets that are growing (e.g. real estate, food and entertainment, healthcare) and where there are increasing demands for lower cost and efficiencies.”

“And given that a lot of people use smartphones, tablets and are generally online, an entrepreneur can take that growing market and build products that enable people to do business with their mobile phones, in a similar low cost and convenient manner as how they browse and post updates on Facebook,” he said.

“It might sound like Facebook has nothing to do with real estate but Facebook paved the way for people to buy a smartphone, get a data plan and discover stuff.”

“So here is the big opportunity for startups: just make it easy for people to discover stuff, perhaps through their Facebook account and you may be on your way to something great. Personally, I look forward to these kinds of disruptive startups that can potentially change the way things are done and often at lower cost and better results,” Buenconsejo said.

The post Looking ahead: 2014 in tech, startups appeared first on Leon Kilat : The Tech Experiments.

Looking ahead: 2014 in tech, startups

Over the holidays, I’d often find our youngest kid, 10-year-old Lennon, hunched on the sofa watching YouTube episodes of a cartoon series on the phone. Once in a while I’d offer to download the episodes for him so he could watch it on TV. “Naah,” he’d say. Watching on the phone was enough for him.

Look around and you’ll see people, mostly the young, starting to use phones and tablets more and more for most anything – playing games, watching videos, listening to music, reading stuff and connecting through social networks.

Will 2014 be the year of the mobile shift – when more people use portable devices rather than desktops to access the Internet – in the Philippines? It has happened in many countries abroad. But are we there yet? I think momentum is building for the shift but 2014 may be a bit too soon. Give it a year or two.

The mobile revolution will be an exciting and disruptive time that will have profound implications across industries. It is this mobile shift and how we seize the opportunities that come with it that I look forward to the most this year.

But for IdeaSpace Foundation, Inc. president and co-founder Earl Martin Valencia, mobility will not just mean mobile devices but “new form factors like wearables, cars, clothing and the like.”

Convergence

“I am hot on true convergence, where the digital and physical spaces collide, so I am out for sensor-based analytics for agriculture, health, transport, hardware technologies,” he said when asked in an interview about the big opportunity for the year.

Valencia sees this year as the “breakout year for our community, when we then translate the potential into actual.” IdeaSpace picked and incubated its first batch of startups last year.

“2014 should be the year when we all push to accelerate the growth of our ecosystem to attract more people to pursue startups and foreign investors to take a more serious look in funding locally-grown companies,” Valencia said.

For TechTalks.ph founder Tina Amper, 2014 will offer “a great opportunity for those who are interested to take advantage of numerous events, competitions, tech developments and opportunities to develop their tech and business skills or careers or start a business.”

Cebu hackathon

CEBU HACKATHON. Cebu developers work on their projects during a hackathon at the Exist Tech Bar in IT Park to build projects to help the country deal with destruction wrought by super typhoon Yolanda. (Photo by Max Limpag)

Cebu is booming

“Philippines is booming. Cebu is booming. Opportunities abound. Do something. Ride the wave,” said Amper, who was among the earliest community organizers credited for kickstarting the local startups community in this part of the country.

Amper said she saw startups that “have evolved, pivoted and gained traction” and there were some highs and lows but “lots of lessons learned.” “Applying those lessons, keeping their heads up, being proactive and persevering are key to those who already started,” she said.

Amper said she hopes to see this year government and business stepping up and using technology to improve services like transportation, online business licenses and online tracking services to cut corruption.

Amper sees an opportunity for the youth “to use their energy and great ideas to explore new careers” like being social media managers, community managers, brand managers, web designers, software developers and game developers. “IT does not only mean call center. It could also mean these new, high-paying and fun careers!” she said.

Amper said we should start aspiring for “world-class and efficient processes.”

International hub

“Cebu is becoming an international hub. Let the locals continue to improve and meet global standards so we can earn global-standard compensation. I have many guests from abroad who land in Cebu to do business. They are impressed with our hard-working, friendly, English-speaking workforce and want to live and do business here,” she said, “But they are frustrated with Filipino time, sub-standard service, flaky employees, unreliable infrastructure (Internet/phone). Some of these things are easier to fix than others. Let’s push for continuous improvement.”

For Exist president and CEO Jerry Rapes, the tech community needs to “start producing concrete results. We need to see more apps go online, gain users and feedback, get products funded and create more success stories.‎”

Rapes said the local tech and startup community “has been activated aggressively the past 24 months” but we need to sustain interest and momentum.”

“I believe the startup community becomes effective when it uses tech to solve pain points. Pain points can be very complex or very day-to-day. If we focus on solving these pain points we will stumble on the ‘big thing,’” he said.

Focus on enterprise

“Exist is very focused on helping the enterprise involved in healthcare, finance, telco and retail solve their pain points. We’re not anymore an outsourced development team, we’re working on becoming a solution provider for the digital transformation of the enterprise,” he said.

Industry veteran Mark John Buenconsejo, meanwhile, expects 2014 to see the local startup community “continuing to push the initiatives that we have set out a few years back.”

Startup Weekend events will continue, the pitching competitions organized by the local seed funds will be there and perhaps a few funding rounds by local startups. There were already a few that got funded last year and that gave our country some exposure about the potential of startups here,” he said.

Buenconsejo, who is co-founder and CEO of CareSharing, is among Cebu’s first startup successes. He sees “discovery” as a big opportunity.

Growing markets

“In the Philippines it’s particularly exciting since there are still a lot of legacy industries. One particular product play is discovery. It might look like Google is leading in the online search business but there are still a lot of niches where people still need a better way to discover stuff. Discovery is a strategic step, since once something can easily be discovered online, it opens up more opportunities to grow,” he said.

“The big opportunity can come from markets that are growing (e.g. real estate, food and entertainment, healthcare) and where there are increasing demands for lower cost and efficiencies.”

“And given that a lot of people use smartphones, tablets and are generally online, an entrepreneur can take that growing market and build products that enable people to do business with their mobile phones, in a similar low cost and convenient manner as how they browse and post updates on Facebook,” he said.

“It might sound like Facebook has nothing to do with real estate but Facebook paved the way for people to buy a smartphone, get a data plan and discover stuff.”

“So here is the big opportunity for startups: just make it easy for people to discover stuff, perhaps through their Facebook account and you may be on your way to something great. Personally, I look forward to these kinds of disruptive startups that can potentially change the way things are done and often at lower cost and better results,” Buenconsejo said.

The post Looking ahead: 2014 in tech, startups appeared first on Leon Kilat : The Tech Experiments.

IdeaSpace winners show why it’s never too late to chase your dreams

When orthopedic surgeon Dr. Rene Catan proposed to create a local and cheaper total joint implant, nobody listened.

Way mutoo, way maminaw (nobody believed, nobody listened),” Catan said Friday while propping up the huge P500,000 mock check he got for being one of the 10 winners of IdeaSpace’s nationwide search for start-ups.

Catan and his teammates, epidemiologist Niño Ismael Pastor and engineer Vernie Reyes, were named winners for their entry Mirand (Metal Implants Research And Development Corp.) in the IdeaSpace nationwide finals last Friday at the First Pacific Leadership Academy in Antipolo City, Rizal.

Catan specializes in joint replacements and finds it frustrating that people who needed their knees replaced refused the procedure because of the cost. He said he had been grappling with the problem for close to 20 years. Many people, Catan said, became aware of the procedure when former president Joseph Estrada underwent it.

NEVER TOO LATE. Cebuano doctors Niño Ismael Pastor (2nd from left) and Rene Catan (3rd from left) with PLDT and Smart public affairs head Mon Isberto (left) and Smart chief wireless adviser Orlando Vea after the IdeaSpace finals. Catan, in an interview, said it’s never too late to chase your dream. (PHOTO BY MAX LIMPAG)

NEVER TOO LATE. Cebuano doctors Niño Ismael Pastor (2nd from left) and Rene Catan (3rd from left) with PLDT and Smart public affairs head Mon Isberto (left) and Smart chief wireless adviser Orlando Vea after the IdeaSpace finals. Catan, in an interview, said it’s never too late to chase your dream. (PHOTO BY MAX LIMPAG)

The prostheses have to be imported and can cost up to P150,000. He said some would rather take medications that can have dire side effects like eventual kidney failure rather ran have their joints replaced.

Cheaper prototype

Catan said he and his team were able to make a cheaper prototype because labor costs here are lower, they outsourced its manufacturing and their design was simpler and had fewer parts although still offering “greater range of motion to allow squatting and kneeling without compromise in quality.” The cost savings can amount to an estimated 50 percent, he said.

They had a hard time, however, in reaching out to potential investors because nobody listened to them.

“One day my wife gave me a piece of paper, which she got from her friend. It was about IdeaSpace. She said ‘why don’t you fill this up? Why don’t you validate your idea?” Catan said.

He filed his IdeaSpace application and progressed through the process until eventually landing among 20 finalists out of 700 that submitted to the nationwide contest.

When the finalists were subjected to a Skype interview, Catan said he tried to ask IdeaSpace whether he could come over to their office instead because he did not know how to use the VOIP and video conferencing software.

When told that they had to do the interview over Skype to be fair to everyone, Catan said he had to seek his child’s help.

Never too late

When Catan, who is 54, and his team went up on stage last Friday to claim their award from IdeaSpace chairman Manuel Pangilinan, they were the most applauded from a start-up field young enough to be their children.

“It’s never too late when you’re an entrepreneur and you have ideas and you want these ideas to soar. It’s not about the age. It’s your dream that makes you young,” he said.

Catan, Pastor and Reyes, along with the nine other winning start-ups, got P500,000. They will also receive funding and incubation services worth up to P5 million each.

Another team that won in the contest is TimeFree, which was a project submitted to the Smart Wireless Engineering Education Program (Sweep) in 2010.

TimeFree is a system that manages the queuing of customers. It allows people to leave the queue and get an SMS notification when it’s close to their turn.

Student project

When it was a student project, the system included a piece of equipment where people dropped P5 and then entered their priority number, specified on which priority number they want to be alerted and then entered the phone number where they want alert text messages sent.

Joselle Macrohon, who thought about the project when she was still a student and saw long lines in Ateneo de Zamboanga’s finance office, said she couldn’t believe their achievement. Macrohon is now the group’s chief financial officer.

Teammate Philip Adrian Atilano, now the chief executive officer, said that “after so many failures, this is the best thing to have happened.”

“We had a lot of obstacles even in college, many said it wasn’t needed, it’s no good. We proved them wrong,” he said.

Atilano said they did away with the hardware that accepted P5 coins and turned the system into a software package that is easier to deploy. They’ve added an online scheduler that allows people to get a priority number even without going to the establishment.

Macrohon said they already have a deal with Smart to deploy the system in its wireless centers nationwide.

The other winners include Armtech from Angeles City, an affordable water purification machine for households; DateCola from Davao, a natural date-enriched beverage; PGRS from Metro Manila, a system that produces electricity via rumble strips on high traffic roads; PinoyTravel from Metro Manila, a bus seat reservation system that uses mobile technologies; PortfolioMNL from Metro Manila, an online marketplace for creative professionals; Prodigo from Manila, a solution for targeted promotions and analytics; Tech4Health from MetroManila, a solution for monitoring chronic health conditions including diabetes; and WeGen from Sorsogon, a new design of wind turbine that is more efficient than what is currently available.

IdeaSpace president Earl Martin Valencia said the 10 winners “embody what we need right now in the Philippines.

“We have a diversity of ideas from IT-based solutions all the way to the next big medical company. That’s what we want here,” he said.

The post IdeaSpace winners show why it’s never too late to chase your dreams appeared first on Leon Kilat : The Tech Experiments.