Startup competition accepts application until March 18

Goldy Chu Yancha, IdeaSpace associate director for business development and partnerships, Diane Eustaquio, executive director, Joshua de la Llana, co-founder of Tactiles, one of IdeaSpace’s previous startup-incubatees, and Dustin Masancay, associate director for advocacy and marketing

IdeaSpace Foundation Inc., the startup incubator and accelerator program of the PLDT group, is accepting applications for its annual competition until March 18. It held its first feedback session on March 3 to help applicants improve their presentation on pitch day.

The program has funded successful startups in its four years including SALt, which utilizes an innovative saltwater lamp technology, and Tactiles, which developed an educational toy that helps children learn electronics while playing.

To further strengthen the startup community in the Philippines, the foundation decided to waive equity to this year’s winners.

“Ever since IdeaSpace was founded, we have declared our belief that Filipino entrepreneurs can turn their innovative startup ideas into reality and make it big on the world stage as long as there is an ecosystem to support them,” said Diane Eustaquio, executive director of IdeaSpace. “With this new equity-free funding structure, IdeaSpace strengthens its commitment to the local startup ecosystem to bring out the most socially relevant innovations that can help solve pressing problems of the world, particularly in emerging economies such as the Philippines.”

Eustaquio said this will allow startup founders and IdeaSpace to collaborate and focus fully on bringing these early-stage ideas to reality, and ensure that each idea has a clear and achievable runway toward commercial viability.

The foundation has been open to different types of ideas whether they are for promoting social responsibility or addressing a simple technological need.

IdeaSpace also held early feedback because “a lot of great ideas and teams get rejected during the Round 1 judging not because they are bad” but because of ineffective pitching. Presentation is as important as the idea to winning a slot in the top 20. The feedback sessions are aimed at helping them improve their pitches and speeches. They have to convince investors, after all.

Eustaquio also said that this year, they would be focusing on teams and individuals as they had with ideas in the past. The passion would always be there, but the skill to make the idea successful is something that needs to be looked into.

The top 20 early-stage startups that will enter incubation will be announced by July 5. At least 10 of these startups will enter the acceleration phase beginning Aug. 1.

Interested groups and individuals can now log on to https://apply.ideaspacefoundation.org to fill out the form and submit their startup ideas for evaluation until March 18. IdeaSpace is accepting applications from the Philippines and Southeast Asian countries. RC