Comments on: Silicon Valley in the Philippines?

By: rick

rick — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 21:40:56 +0000

efforts here to start is much greater than other rich countries, why?
1. poverty-you need to feed your family first before tackling your passion and thats requires lots of effort compared to other countries, inventing something requires real time and financing. skills and talents is not an issue, financing? we have lots of it in DOST(dami nila funding kaso ala naman nag aaply) so we have lots of it! but we need to feed our family first now! you needs lots and lots of effort to support your family and at the same time inventing/developing something, it drains lots of energy until you gave up!. if we could just focused our time and effort to our passion not worrying with our family, we can do more! so i need to work muna for my family…..

By: rick

rick — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 21:40:40 +0000

By: Justin Lancomb

Justin Lancomb — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:37:00 +0000

More than just BPOs to fill up a local version of silicon valley, we need legit IT incubators that can generate home grown tech services and products.

Peace!

By: al

al — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:04:40 +0000

I think Baguio is a very good place, specifically on the PEZA and loakan area. The place is nice and still not that crowded compared to central baguio. It only takes around half an hour to commute. Apartments there are also cheaper. The internet backbone is also good as what I experienced when I was working for texas instrument. I had to connect through a VPN to dallas texas most of the time but I seldom had any problem. The loakan airport is also within the vicinity. Some prominent call centers like sitel have an office there. And the climate is also friendly to big servers.

By: raymund

raymund — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:57:02 +0000

I hope that our own version of the silicon valley will uplift our Philippine economy….

However another problem came….the recession.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 23:54:15 +0000

I have 4 very talented friends who are programmers. All of them were given very good offers in places like Canada, Europe and Singapore.

I can’t blame them though. Earning a sure 4000+ USD for them is much better then literally betting on the “house and farm” on a Start-up venture that might fail and melt away their time and money investment with it.

Also Silicon Valley have ADVENTUROUS venture capitalist who are willing to bet millions/billions on startups. I don’t think the Rich in the Philippines would be so daring as they would rather put their money in more traditional businesses.

By: erwin castro

erwin castro — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:04:50 +0000

Filipino It lack the necessary skills and funding to launch those startup. there also don’t have enough courage to launch a startup. There are garage innovators across this country some of them working lone wolf, some are collaborating, working like wolf pack. But they can’t do it because this country is still in young when it comes to launching an startup, people are too afraid to take a risk. No one take a moonshot project of their own. The real factor here is the Funding, tools and the passions to take a moonshot. Philippines don’t have VC who scout the country for future Facebook or youtube. Maybe someday who knows?

By: Vadim Berman

Vadim Berman — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:14:53 +0000

A foreigner’s view:

I think the Philippines have most of the necessary ingridients, but these ones get me:

* horrible infrastructure. Yes, I know that there are places with their own generators, that will survive a nuclear attack; but having routine brownouts and electrical spikes that can bust a toaster is, as you understand, very discouraging.
* developers are frequently treated as “computer guys” who do everything from administration of the local network to system programming. For serious development one needs specialists who spend 100% of their time programming or administrating, not jacks of all trades.
* Some of the software infrastructure, which doesn’t really require a lot of investment, simply doesn’t work. How difficult is it to make sure that emails on a website work? If after 3 attempts all of the emails to a huge telco’s return with “account doesn’t exist” errors, what kind of impression does it make about the company? And why everybody insists on using Yahoo and GMail as their work emails?

However, on the positive side:
* people are extremely accommodating, and willing to learn
* the senior execs are more approachable than in other countries
* the skill level is reasonably high
* people are willing to tinker with things, when it’s not in the books. They don’t have it in India nor in China, and this is IMHO what has primarily built Israeli hi-tech.

By: Technology Entrepreneurship Class in UP | YugaTech | Philippines, Technology News & Reviews

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:48:46 +0000

[...] of these kind of electives in school. It’s one way to nurture future technopreneurs make the Silicon Valley in the Philippines a [...]

By: Berlin

Berlin — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:48:15 +0000

It’s still cheaper to outsource to Russian or Vietnamese programmers. I have prototype being built for $2,500. I tried shopping around for freelancers in Pinas but the average cost is $1,300 and that only for the template. LOL

By: Jerome

Jerome — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:21:06 +0000

@Miguel: Morph Code is entirely separate operation (although related in ecosystem) to Morph Labs. Let’s just say it’s Winston’s playground.

By: Gian Paolo

Gian Paolo — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 17:10:58 +0000

Have you heard of the UP-Ayala Science and Technology Park? I hope this will start the change of focus we are waiting for.

By: Ian

Ian — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 08:12:03 +0000

We need success stories. Are there any from the Brain Gain Network, for example? Whatever happened to the UP-Ateneo ‘Silicon Alley’ (aka Ayala-funded incubator)?

By: Miguel

Miguel — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 08:03:46 +0000

The company is still pretty new, so I don’t know if they have customers or partners.

By: ChrisMo

ChrisMo — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 03:45:15 +0000

@Miguel: Thanks for sharing that… Did it work for someone, I hope theres a project currently benefiting from them.

By: Roger D

Roger D — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 03:44:58 +0000

niche always present itself. if you tell something to your friends and replied back something like these,

1. what’s that?
2. puwede ba yun?
3. no, it can’t be done

there, you could have a niche product or service. No one knows it pa eh.

1995 I setup an ISP, my friends told me, what’s a modem? what’s Internet?

1997 Setup a Network Security company, I sell firewall, businesses says what’s a firewall?

1999 I co-founded a pioneering company that develops mobile content. Some of our contemporary laughs at us, from security to ringtones and wallpaper daw.

Also, there could be parallel thinking but what matters is the execution.

By: Miguel

Miguel — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:03:40 +0000

If it's about E-Learning, E-Health or E-Government, these guys want to fund you: Morph Code.

By: ChrisMo

ChrisMo — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:26:13 +0000

Another common case of brain drain in the PH, I hope some venture capitalists start sharing their resources as I many Filipinos have killer start-up ideas and good plans with no funding…