There are plenty of Filipinos with great ideas. Getting them in the hands of consumers as an affordable mass-produced product however is another matter. It takes decades of industrial knowhow not currently found in the country to turn prototypes into a brand and a business.
At the recently concluded Festival Of Ideas on November 30, 2016 at the Newport Performing Arts Theater, Resorts World Manila, speakers Ibrahim Rasul-Bernardo, CEO of Sari Software Solutions who has won global acclaim for his store management app for micro-entrepreneurs, and Matthew Cua, CEO of Skyeye Inc. that provides drones for watershed management, disaster assessment, and infrastructure planning, noted that many Filipino inventors and entrepreneurs have great ideas.
The pair cited examples such as Bambikes handmade bamboo bicycles, Loudbasstard eco-friendly bamboo speaker amplifiers, and Rags2Richeshandmade artisanal bags made from upcycled materials that were all designed and manufactured in the Philippines by Filipino communities that benefit from fair trade and with matrials sourced form the Philippines.
However, Cua admits, “But when it comes to hardware, gadgets, it’s rare and very difficult.”
They cited trying unsuccessfully to find manufactures to create prototypes for over a year and having it successfully done in Shenzhen China in a matter of months.
Rasul Bernardo attests, “it’s really cheap to go outside the Philippines, very cheap to go to China… especially Shenzhen. For $200, you can get there easily. There’s AirBnB there. And then there are local Filipinos ther. You can connect with them. And then before you know it, you’ll be able to reel whatever you want.”
Cua clarifies, “It’s not about ‘Go China’ per se. But we have to change the idea set of us just taking local, but us going global. How we build our products is also going global, right? You can have teams from around the world. Get the best part from Germany, get the best team from here, use the manufacturing of China, get some talents from other places, combine it as Filipinos with our creativity, and then let go!”
