IdeaSpace Gives Seed Funding to 10 Civic-Minded Startups from the Philippines

Philippines-based incubator IdeaSpace recently awarded ten tech startups with funding of PHP 5 million (over US$ 121,000) each. I first looked at this incubator last September when it started its national search for the civic-minded Pinoy tech innovation.

The submission of entries ended January this year, and out of 700 applicants from all over the Philippines. These are the ten winners that will be the first batch of IdeaSpace’s incubatees (with descriptions provided by the incubator):

• Armtech (Angeles City) – affordable water purification machine for households
• DateCola (Davao City/General Santos City) – natural, date-sweetened beverages as a healthy alternative to soft drinks
• Mirand (Metro Manila) – low-cost and high-quality surgical joint implants for the Asian market
• PGRS (Metro Manila) – produces electricity via rumble strips installed on heavily trafficked roads
• PinoyTravel (Metro Manila) – provincial bus seat reservation system on mobile
• PortfolioMNL (Metro Manila) – online marketplace for creative professionals
• Prodigo (Metro Manila) – a solution for highly targeted promotions for merchants using ‘big data’ analytics
• Tech4Health (Metro Manila) – solution for health monitoring of chronic conditions, including diabetes
• TimeFree (Zamboanga) – SMS-based automated queuing system
• WeGen (Sorsogon) – new design of wind turbine that is more efficient than current technology

Aside from funding, they will be provided technical and mentoring assistance from IdeaSpace partners such as Amazon, Freelancer, Microsoft Philippines, and several universities.

The next round of startup submissions will open around September of this year, according to Earl Martin Valencia, president of IdeaSpace, in readiness for the 2014 batch. He added, “This is a yearly thing hopefully for next the next five years.”

As to what he thinks made this first batch exceptional, he cited “the diversity of ideas and backgrounds of the innovators, from doctors and engineers to IT experts.” We’re also happy to see some civic-minded startups in action.