MANILA, Philippines?Government is turning mobile container vans into offices for technology startups.

The Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Technology Resource Center (TRC), the Advance Science and Technology Institute (ASTI) and Philippine Economic Zone (PEZA) have worked together to create this ?Technology Business Incubation? (TBI) facility, an official said.

Lauren Velasquez, TRC group manager of the Technology Utilization and Commercialization Services Group, said the project is set to launch in March this year.

"It is not a permanent structure but retro-fitted container vans customized for IT [startups] that have no means or funds for starting their own offices. Essentially it's free space where they are housed, with Internet connectivity, other tools that would help them come up with open-source program initiatives that will give more job opportunities," Velasquez said.

TRC will manage this project and is offering marketing, legal, administrative support and intellectual property assistance, he said. Meanwhile, ASTI will offer technical, computing, managing help to the technology startups.

Each container van can house about 24 people.

"Unlike startup businesses that could guarantee profit and revenue in months time, this is a long process. IT [startups] will explore technologies that are just there, with great commercial potential that hasn't been tapped but there is great risk that it could not work," Velasquez said.

"We are not trying to compete with the private sector but really just trying to show the great potential of job opportunities in this sector," Velasquez added.