Friday, June 22, 2007 Peso brings biz plan competition to Davao By Joy Romares-Sevilla
THE Philippine Emerging Startups Open (Peso), a technology innovation business plan competition in association with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Tech Club of the Philippines, is bringing to Davao City the first regional Business Plan Competition outside Metro Manila this year.
"Peso has been running this national competition for two years now and we want to bring the competition down to the regional level. The Davao Peso Business Plan Competition would mean that the entries will come from Davao, will be judged in Davao, and the winners will automatically qualify for the national competition this year," Federico Gonzalez, Peso president said at Thursday's Club 888 press forum.
Gonzalez said the competition does not target to choose a certain type of project or business plan to be declared as the winner, but it aimed to identify that somebody will be successful of the business plan to be chosen.
"There are cash awards to be given including the recognition on the most innovative business plan and the business plan with the highest social impact or appeal to the people," Gonzalez said, adding that the awards will be given on November, this year.
Meanwhile, Andrei Fournier, one of the Board of Trustees of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. (DCCCII), said the competition will gather all the capitalists from Davao City and the teams who will present the business plans.
"There are persons who have the money, but don't have the idea, and there are also those who have no money, but have the idea, we are actually matching these people in this competition," Fournier said.
Fournier added that each team shall be composed of individuals with at least one technopreneur student and a business management personnel in each team.
Fournier said the competition is patterned from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that has been conducting the competition for 17 years now.
