A Tech Plan Demo Day of the Tech Planter Program organized by Leave a Nest Co., Ltd. was held for the third straight year at the QBO Innovation Hub, Makati City, Metro Manila last May 18, 2019. The Tech Planter program work together with people whose aim is to change the world or implement the technology for global happiness. Leave a Nest Co., Ltd. (with headquarter in Japan and offices Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, USA and UK) is the Tech Planter’s organizer and provides startups mentoring, fundraising and market expansion opportunities in Asia.
The Tech Plan Demo day had helped several startup companies expand their technology and have showcased these to the Philippine market. Among the startups is the Fruitect Team led by Dr. Hidelisa Hernandez, of the Institute of Chemistry, U. P. Los Baños, who was the grand winner of Tech Plan Demo Day in the Philippines 2018. The Fruitect Team is working on the development of fruit coating for shelf life extension of fresh fruits. As Keynote Speaker in the 2019 Demo Day, Dr. Hernandez shared her experiences and journey on the Tech Planter program and encouraged the participants to do their best and share their technology to improve the quality of life in the Philippines.
During the 2019 Tech Plan Demo Day, twelve teams out of 44 applicants were given a chance to pitch their technology to a panel of judges composed of investors, company owners, technology adoptors and journalists. Among the judges were Dr. Yuhiro Maru, founder and group CEO of Leave a Nest Co. Ltd.; Mr. Masahito Yano, project Manager of New Business Development Division of Mitsui Chemicals Singapore; Mr. Sophian Abdul Rahman the co-founder and CEO of Delightex Pte Ltd.; Mr. Kazuhiro Obara of Forbes Japan; Mr. Artie Lopez of Brainsparks Philippines; Mr. Jacinto Asuncion Jr. of DOST-UP Enterprise Center for Technopreneurship; Mr. JC Pullan of Ideaspace Foundation; Mr. Marrione Pol B. Camacho of Nexus Innovation Labs; and Ms. Katrina Rausa Chan of QBO Innovation Hub.
The Pentaflora Team, comprised of Dr. Vivian A. Topor and Prof. Gabrielle Troy A. Cuevas of the Department of Chemistry U. P. Visayas, was also invited to pitch at the event to share their technology to investors. Dr. Topor talked about the Pentaflora pH test strip as an effective and eco-friendly alternative of the existing expensive test strips in the market.
The nanolab LRC won the grand prize of 300,000 JPY for their nanomaterials electrode for electrochemical energy storage applications. They also won the Delightex Award given by the Delightex PTE Ltd. They will compete with other Tech Plan Demo day winners from other countries in the Tech Plan Demo Day in Singapore this August 2019. On the other hand, Polygone recyclers won the Mitsui Chemicals Award for their corrosion-inhibiting product derived from plastic sachets while Kometech won the Leave a Nest special award for their InfraDry-rice mechanical dryer. The event offered avenue for networking where each team further shared their ideas with the investors while other teams for future collaborations.
