THE Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa) is staging a business plan competition for workers abroad.
According to a press statement, the contest is for Filipino seafarers, men and women, who are planning to retire soon.
The business plan competition is a public-private partnership between the Department of Labor and Employment’s Owwa-National Reintegration Center for OFWs (NRCO) and Integrated Seafarers of the Philippines (ISP), including its affiliated manning agencies.
The program promotes a holistic approach on reintegration preparedness among seafarers with their families.
The competition is open to active and inactive seafarers, 25 years old and above, who are interested to venture into entrepreneurship soon. Work experience does not matter in joining the competition. Allowed to join are inactive seafarers, or those who have already been staying in the Philippines for not more than five years.
Competition process
In the event that the seafarer is working abroad, the members of the family of the seafarer can join and apply on his/her behalf. However, the ideas should come from the seafarer himself/herself.
The competition—open for business startups, all types of business except franchising—has four stages.
The first stage is proposal writing, which must be submitted on or before Sept. 6, 2019 to either of these email addresses: nrcoispbusinessplan@gmail.com and ro7.nrco@yahoo.com.
A hard copy of the business plan can also be submitted through the Owwa 7’s office, which is located on the second floor of the Dole 7 Building on Gen. Maxilom Ave. corner Gorordo Ave. in Cebu City. For further inquiries, interested participants can contact the Owwa 7’s landline (254-3199) or its cell phone number (0916-317-1121).
The second stage is the screening round. All qualified entries will be evaluated and 10 outstanding proposals will be chosen. The process includes checking of the participants’ personal histories. In the event that a participant withdraws his/her entry, entries ranked 11 to 15 shall be considered to complete the 10 finalists. Announcement of the finalists will be made on the last week of September.
Mentoring round is the competition’s third stage. The top 10 contestants will undergo mentoring in Manila, which includes one-day, one-topic lectures about business and entrepreneurship, business planning, tax and business registrations, financial management, human resources management, marketing and sales, personality development, and other tips from the Department of Trade and Industry. The contestants must attend all topics; failure to do so would be ground for disqualification.
The final round is expected to happen sometime in November 2019, during which contestants are required to defend their proposals before the panel of judges. Questions would evolve around the proposal, and announcement of winners would be done after the defense.
Criteria for judging are contents of the plan, including social business idea and purpose (30 points); impact on the community (20), financial viability (30); clarity and presentation of the business plan (10); and drive/determination of the business plan owner-entrepreneur (10)—for a total of 100 points.
Prizes
The business plan of the year overall champion will receive P500,000 (to be given in three tranches). The first runner-up will receive P100,000.
The rest of the eight finalists will receive P50,000 each.
Also, the finalists would have the chance to get possible grants and access to preferential business loan funding from the NRCO and its partners.
After the competition, the Owwa through the NRCO would monitor the progress of the finalists’ respective businesses.
The Owwa would assist them during the early stages of their businesses. (S)