STAC Silicon Valley launches 2nd annual ON3 pitching competition

PALO ALTO, California—Board Members of the Science and Technology Advisory Council, Silicon Valley (“STAC-Silicon Valley” or “STAC”) traveled to the Philippines last week to kick off ON3 2012. ON3 is the nationwide start up tech search and business plan competition launched by STAC Silicon Valley in 2011 that is conducted in various locations across Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.

The journey begins on April 10 in Cebu, host of the Visayas regional this year where board members will also meet with founders and members of TechTalks Cebu who helped organize the event in the region.

“We are excited once again conduct our ongoing search for emerging tech companies in the Philippines. The initial launch of ON3 in 2011 enjoyed a healthy start as we engaged dialogue with the tech start up community, academe and the private sector,” said Christina Laskowski, president of STAC – Silicon Valley.

“We believe our efforts were further augmented with new partnerships and several announcements of new angel funds in 2012. One significant challenge of the start-up community is lack of funding for very early stage companies,” Laskowski. “Therefore, we were extremely pleased to hear that three significant mobile market players came forward this year to help address this need,” said Christina Laskowski, president of STAC – Silicon Valley.”

Ongoing endorsement of ON3 remains strong from the mobile private sector with Novare Technologies and SMART communications serving as lead sponsors of ON3 in 2012. “We were extremely pleased with the quality of the presentations and ideas from the companies that participated last year and we continue to believe that through the ON3 platform, Philippine-based tech companies will emerge and begin to receive international recognition for their talent in meaningful areas of technology,” said Myla Villanueva, CEO of Novare Technologies.

The Regional ON3 competition kicks off in the Visayas on Tuesday, April 10, 2012 at UP Cebu, AVR in Lahug, Cebu City. This is followed by Mindanao at Martha’s Place, Brokenshire College in Madapo, Davao City on Friday, April 13.

The Luzon regionals will be conducted into two locations – North and South. The Northern Luzon regional begins on Monday, April 16 at the Philippine College of Science and Technology in Nalsian, Calasiao, Pangasinan while the Southern Luzon & NCR regionals occur on Thursday, April 19 at Meridien Internation College at Fort Bonifacio, Taguig.

Judges from Silicon Valley will hear senior management and founders of various companies pitch their business for three minutes. The companies will be judged on specific criteria and companies receiving the highest scores will quality to participate in the finals to be held in July 2012.

Winners from the Finals will be considered for the grand prize of a three (3) month Silicon Valley Immersion package sponsored by Plug and Play (PnP) Tech Center in Sunnyvale, California.

The prototype ON3 competition was launched at the 2010 eServices Philippines serving as the first competition of its kind in the Philippines. Jojo Flores, co-founder & VP-Operations at Plug and Play Tech Center who also serves as Vice President of STAC-SV, led the event and currently serves as the ON3 Director.

Flores also secured the grand prize sponsorship for a three-month full suite of services and executive advisement at Plug and Play’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, California.