“See you in Boracay!” 500 Startups’ Dave McClure to Speak in 3rd Geeks on a Beach

 

Wazzup Pilipinas!

“See you in Boracay!” were the words of Silicon Valley startup guru Dave McClure who will speak during the Geeks on a Beach (GOAB) international tech confab. GOAB will be making its third comeback on August 20-21, this time in world-famous Boracay Island where it all began 3 years ago.

McClure also​graced last year’s GOAB held at the Moevenpick Beach Resort Hotel in Cebu. He is prominent in the tech world as the founder of the 500 Startups, a global accelerator and seed fund investing firm that has set its eyes on Asia as one of the fastest growing tech communities in the world.

Before founding 500 Startups in 2010, McClure was already an angel investor frequently investing and advising in startups. He was also a consultant of several high-tech companies like Microsoft and Intel and worked for companies such as PayPal and Facebook.

“The Philippines is a country full of smart and creative people — it’s a perfect place for entrepreneurship to flourish and grow,” said McClure. He added that 500 Startups is interested in a number of startups in the country, though nothing has been finalized yet.

500 Startups has invested in over 500 startups or innovation-driven enterprises related to web search, social media, and mobile app platforms. It now has local partners in Malaysia (500 Durians fund), South Korea (500 Kimchi), and Thailand (500 Tuktuks). It is gearing for even stronger penetration in the Southeast Asian region.

Time for Bloggers to Shape Up or Suffer the Consequence

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Thanks to Vigattin Radio of Radyo Inquirer, we are no longer just getting invites as a blog site or online media but as an accredited media practitioner too.

Vigattin is short for Victory in Governance and Technology Information Network which primarily guests technopreneurs and startups who would like some exposure. It also highlights both government and private initiatives and projects dwelling in science and technology. We would also sometimes have guests from other industries that we welcome with open arms.

We were at a press conference a few days ago and we noticed that there were no bloggers invited for that particular media briefing of what I believe is a very important news scoop that needs to be shared to as many as possible. There were several people from print, TV and radio but no bloggers. Then we realized that we've been to their other media briefings and no bloggers were there too.

You know what we did? After we asked our question during the Q&A, we also suggested that the organizers consider inviting bloggers to help them disseminate the information to a wider audience. There was also this media practitioner who raised a question on why it was very rare to hear news about one of the agencies and it was probably only because their activities and projects are not getting enough media exposure.

We know that may be the only reason because one of our relatives works for a government agency, and they have so many activities that are not known to the public. They do not practice the habit of distributing press releases or photo ops at every activity that they do, unlike politicians who would always share even their littlest feeding programs or charity donating activities.

We recommended to the organizers that they include bloggers in their event invites so we can help them in social media presence.

But why were bloggers not invited to the said press conference in the first place?

10 Lessons to Starting-up From YouthHack Manila’s Startup Challenge 2015

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Ushering in a new generation of empowered youth, YouthHack is an organization that educates students on the world of startup, technology, and entrepreneurship through holding various events that allow participants to pitch their own ideas, and have a go at creating their own business.

Started only one year ago by incoming University of Pennsylvania Sophomore and Xavier School graduate David Ongchoco, YouthHack has already generated much clout and is on its way to disrupt how the youth think of entrepreneurship and technology. What started out as a two-day event in Manila back in July 2014 has now become a global community with events and programs held in the US, Singapore and later this month, Hong Kong.

For this year’s YouthHack Manila Startup Challenge 2015, Kalibrr CEO Paul Rivera, ABS-CBN Chief Digital Officer Donald Lim, Katasyt.ph CEO Pinky Natividad and Chikka Founder Dennis Mendiola all came in as keynote speakers to share their story and gives pieces of advice. YouthHack also brought in workshop speakers from fast-growing startups and incubators like Kalibrr, Uber, Shopinas.com and IdeaSpace to talk about topics like ideation, marketing, product development, growth hacking and more.

Here are a few lessons we took away straight from the event held last July 25-26, where over 200 student participants came together in Xavier School.