Leader in mobile, Smart Communications (Smart) though its developer network, Smart DevNet, strengthened anew, its support for the Philippine start-up community by co-presenting the 4th Geeks on a Beach (GOAB) conference held in Panglao Island, Bohol.
A tech and startup conference that brought together hundreds of geeks from all over the world, GOAB featured industry thought leaders and highlighted local and international innovation-driven enterprises. The confab featured some of the brightest minds in the industry from the USA, Singapore, and Malaysia. Techstars co-founder and managing partner David Brown, Chris McCann of Greylock Partners, Crowdsourcing Week CEO Epi Ludvik Nekaj, 500 Startups Managing Partner and Investor Khailee Ng, 500 Startups corporate innovation director Arnaud Bonzom, Ideaspace.ph Director Diane Eustaquio, Dindo Marzan of Voyager and Smart DevNet’s Paul Pajo were just some of the resource speakers for this year’s event.
“Our support for the start-up community has always been unwavering. We recognize the need to engage future business leaders in their start-up endeavors that are innovative and disruptive. We will continue to nurture and work closely with the community to achieve one common goal, and that is, to make the Philippine start-up ecosystem as successful as that of its neighboring countries like Malaysia and Singapore” said Pajo.
Tech for good in the Philippine start-up community
During the conference, Pajo discussed how Smart partners with start-up organizations to provide inclusive technology to remote, underserved communities. Highlighted during his presentation were ShineOS+ and the Smart Wireless Engineering Education Program (SWEEP), flagship initiatives of Smart Communities–the umbrella corporate social responsibility program of Smart.
Launched in 2011 in consultation with the Department of Health (DOH) and various stakeholders, SHINE is the first open-source cloud-based electronic medical record (EMR) and e-referral system in the country, readily deployable in any area with Internet coverage. The multi-awarded mHealth platform enables health facilities and professionals to create EMRs, send electronic referrals to other health facilities, generate reports, and send SMS reminders to patients. Now known as ShineOS+, it is one of the only six (6) EMRs accredited by the Department of Health (DoH).
SWEEP aims to improve engineering and information technology education through industry-academe partnerships with universities and colleges all over the country. The program also holds the annual SWEEP Innovation and Excellence Awards which calls for students to create mobile and digital innovations that will address the country’s key challenges. SWEEP was recently included in Fortune’s Top 50 “Change the World” list of companies, which recognizes companies that do well by doing good. Smart was the only Philippine company and the only telco on the list.
For the 3rd straight year, Department of Information and Communications Technology (formerly DOST-ICTO) also showed its support for GOAB.
“This year, we’ve seen better content and better participation from everyone not just from the Philippine start-up community, but also from those who flew all the way from Malaysia, Singapore, and Silicon Valley in the USA. Our own start-up scene is becoming very exciting. We have a lot of problems to address in our country and definitely a lot of opportunities for our ideas to be developed to help solve all the challenges with the help of technology” said Monchito Ibrahim, Deputy Executive Director of the DICT.
Aside from Smart and DICT, GOAB was co-presented by PLDT SME Nation and Techtalks.PH.
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