START-UP weekend Women Davao, an entrepreneurship and innovation booth camp, will be focusing on creating solutions for the cacao industry in Davao Region and Mindanao this year as the industry continues to be challenged in terms of marketing and processing.
“We really want to focus in the agriculture this time. Since cacao is booming in Davao and Mindanao, we want to focus on providing technology solutions,” Start-up Weekend Davao organizer Mary Rose Ofianga said during Habi at Kape media forum Wednesday, August 28.
“For now, [the challenge is] really the marketing and sales but at the same time, the problem is on the processing side like processing cacao to chocolates or any by-products,” she added.
Ofianga said that through the event, they may come up with solutions through tools or technology like automating the processes in the farm to make it more efficient and help cacao farmers to produce more processed products that could compete in the global market.
The event will be open for women who are potential tech entrepreneurs. This gathering is designed to empower women to become entrepreneurs and step-up in the area of technology and innovation.
It will also gather industry stakeholders to further talk about challenges in the industry while innovators conceptualize innovative business model to solve these issues.
Ofianga said there will be an aviation workshop wherein they invited the Rural Agro-industrial Partnership for Inclusive Development and Growth (Rapid Growth), Department of Science and Technology, and other relevant agencies from the government sector.
Pre-event Ideation workshop will be on September 9 at the TechHub Corp; the opening program, idea pitching and team building will be on September 20 at Kadena Hub; and the event proper will be on September 20 to 22 at Kadena Hub. (LHC)