Today is the second and last day of Slingshot Philippines’ National Summit on Startups and Innovation at the Philippine Trade Training Center in Pasay City. Slingshot PH is the Department of Trade and Industry’s startup and innovation ecosystem and development program aimed at spurring economic growth by giving innovators, startups and entrepreneurs opportunities to exchange ideas, determine policy and seek funding support from investors who are ready to embrace innovative ideas.
Slingshot PH provides the platform where innovators can engage policy makers in a dialogue to highlight the problems faced by innovators and the possible solutions to various challenges and hindrances. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization’s 2015 assessment, the Philippines is now ranked 83rd – or 17 steps higher than its previous ranking of 100th – in the global innovation index.
One of the participants to Slingshots PH 2016 is the newly created La French Tech Philippines ecosystem with French-Cambodian entrepreneur Thierry Tea as its Ambassador. La French Tech, which had its beginnings in 2013, is a publicly funded initiative to promote French startups under a single brand not only in France but also overseas. Since its inception, La French Tech has already developed hubs in major cities that include New York, San Francisco, Barcelona, London, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Cape Town and Tel Aviv, among several others, and is eyeing Manila as its next hub.
According to La French Tech Philippines, the country is an “attractive venue for entrepreneurs worldwide. Being a traditional exporter of electronic components whose people have acquired a strong technical and IT background, the Philippine environment is a naturally favorable site for those who want to develop IT and tech business. French entrepreneurs are attracted to the highly skilled workforce in the Philippines and Filipinos’ proficiency with languages.”
According to its Ambassador Thierry Tea, who is one of the keynote speakers of Slingshot PH 2016, La French Tech Philippines “started with 22 entrepreneurs and it has already grown by more than 30 percent in less than a month.”
Tea is optimistic that the initiative shall “indeed favor the networking of talents and encourage entrepreneurship among them, thereby creating a synergy whose common goal is to contribute to develop opportunities, creativity, attract more entrepreneurs and investors while also positioning France on a path to become a major Tech and innovation partner of the Philippines.”
Among the entrepreneurs with inspiring success stories are Sébastien Caudron, ex-president of Netbooster Asia and now regional director of Philippine-based Group M; Fabrice Boutain, CEO of Anxa which is an online coaching platform based in Alabang that now has more than one million subscribers; Cyril Rocke, president of DataOne which hosts a large number of major corporation’s servers; young entrepreneur Boris Chevreau, the former marketing manager of PhilJets who launched Infinit3solutions which serves as a one-stop recruitment and consulting agency in Metro Manila; Benedicte Souppe whose social startup Calawis Garden delivers fresh fruits and vegetables directly from organic farms; and Henri Motte-Munoz with Edukasyon.com that helps students choose the direction they want to take.
With the strong dynamics of the ecosystem, an application for the French Tech Hub certification of Manila is being prepared within the group. Major cities such as San Francisco, New York or London already benefit from the said certification that provides funds, visibility and mentorship to entrepreneurs, Tech Philippines said.
SAP appoints new head for Southeast Asia
Leading global enterprise application software company SAP has announced the appointment of Scott Russell as its president and managing director for SAP Southeast Asia, further strengthening the senior management team of SAP Asia Pacific Japan. Scott Russell will be responsible for driving SAP Southeast Asia’s sustainable growth strategy and operations and will directly report to Adaire Fox-Martin, president of SAP Asia Pacific Japan.
Russell, who was in Manila recently, is a seasoned executive with more than two decades in the IT industry spanning across software, cloud and services. Prior to this new appointment, he was COO for SAP Asia Pacific Japan where he provided leadership and direction to SAP’s multi-functional sales and operations organizations in APJ, driving continuous productivity improvements and significantly contributing to the achievement of revenue and profitability objectives. Scott was also the interim President and Managing Director for SAP Southeast Asia for the last quarter, where he helped to ensure business continuity.
“As one of the world’s fastest-growing and competitive regions, Southeast Asia is a strategic market for SAP Asia Pacific Japan,” said Fox-Martin who expressed confidence that Russell’s wealth of business and management expertise in the technology industry, will build on a strong growth trajectory and lead SAP Southeast Asia to continued success.
“Southeast Asia companies understand that innovation will be at the forefront of how business operates. As such, technology as an enabler of business can be seen as a means to expand their business and promote growth,” noted Russell, who added that with SAP HANA at the core, and available in the Cloud, SAP is well positioned to bring the value of digital business framework consisting of innovative applications and a reliable network to drive the transformation of Digital Asia and help customers create value.
•••
For comments, reactions, photos, stories and related concerns, readers may email to happyhourtoday2012@yahoo.com. You may also visit and like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/happyhourmanilastandard. We’d be very happy to hear from you. Cheers!