This Shirt Will Soon Be Inked By the Piclyf Founder

See you later at Exist Techbar for the meetup, details here.

by Eric Su of Piclyf

Meetup: Web designers & developers meet & greet!

Before another meetup, The Startup Game by Eric Su, will take event this Wednesday (Feb. 23, 2010), here are some pics of the previous meetup, Web designers & developers meet & greet by Albert Balbutin Jr.

with Albert

with Mark Yap and his team working on money remittance platform

finly got to have a pic with Vernon Go, president of Cebu Bloggers Society

Cebu's Startup Community Getting Hotter

Before the 3rd meetup will happen, I just have to do a quick post about the first of the meet-up series this year 2011 in Cebu, Business of Software Startup and Challenges of Building One Locally. This first meet-up of 2011 was headed by Mark, who is my husband, so I'm not going to talk much about that part.

Instead, I'll talk and show you a few of the interesting people I met on that event, who, I bet, will have a big role in shaping up the Startup community culture here in Cebu. I missed on a lot of the other people who were there -- will make up on the next meet-ups.

Ms. Pauline Wade
She heads the newly opened incubator (co-working space) facility here in Cebu, UP Cebu DOST-TBI. The incubator facility in UP Cebu is all set-up, the only piece missing is you -- the rockstars, your idea, and your passion.

Jun Saa
He is the Executive Director of Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology.

Marvis Sanchez
There's a long personal story behind that, but I will not bore you with that. But he and Mark had been working for different software projects before -- Cleverlearn/Bigfoot, LearningToGo, and there were more I can no longer recall the names.

Marvis, Mark, Harm

Carebears - the instant crow

Paolo, Engwan, Jean, Poy (half)

Harm Rietjens

Harm shared his view about Cebu / Philippines, how he came here, and founded Caresharing here in Cebu.

Jesslee Cuizon
The fresh-from-Japan programmer I met via twitter. Thank you for coming.

Albert Padin & Spelldial Team
Spelldial is a new way of dialing a call. It's a Cebu-based start-up team.

Albert Padin

Me & Albert

Spelldial girl, Nicole, Albert, Me, Honee (of Etroduce)

Ademar Tutor & Odina Abellana

The hunk and chick hackers of Etroduce. I'm part of this team. I will invite you soon, you know who you are. =)

Dave Overton & Kevin Leversee

They are the people behind Sym.ph -- solutions provider built on trust. Dave is also involve with Glory Reborn Organization -- an NGO that provides maternity care.

Dave and Kevin gave a talk

Dave

Kevin

Paolo Lim & Jimbo Cortes

Paolo and Jimbo founded codecampr. And, wheedly is their first web application built.

with Jimbo

Paolo's presentation

Ian Bert Tusil & Stephen Paul Suarez

Both founded Next Sparks Studios, Co. They're currently working on iTropa (formerly GroupsMe) -- a web and SMS-based group-collaboration tool.  

Ian

Ian and Paul

Ian Zafra

We all probably know him best with his band, Sheila and the Insects. But little did I know that he also create music for mobile apps.

Lia Doria

The wedding coordinator turned start-up meetup organizer.

Ademar and Leah

You can check few more pictures here. There were a lot of people I totally missed out on documenting. I totally felt bad about it. But anyhoo, I will try to do my best of documenting each one for the upcoming meet-ups. This series of meetups was started by Tina Amper, who is remotely organizing meet-ups here in Cebu. 

To be updated with Cebu start-up meetups, you can check Tech Talks from Cebu and Beyond meetup group. I'd love to see you in one of the meetups.

UP Cebu-DOST TBI -- co-working space & support system for your ideas and start-ups

Last Thursday, I got a chance to visit the new Cebu Business Incubator for IT (CebuinIT), a UP Cebu-DOST TBI (Technology Business Incubator) project. I sat in the discussion of the incubator manager, a start-up enthusiast, and market entry guy -- they are all veterans. So I, somehow, was able to listen to 3 different point of views about ideas, innovation, team building, start-up, passion, culture and such. There are too many things I realized from that visit but let me keep this post to the facility first.

For spaces, UP Cebu-DOST TBI has cubicle spaces and room type. The cubicle type is already way spacious for a start-up (me thinkgs). They're located inside the campus of UP Cebu, Philippines.

Cubicle: 5 sq.m area per cubicle

Cyberpress Awards 2010 Recipient -- the Who's Who of 2010 Philippine Tech

IT Company of the Year -- Cherry Mobile
IT Executive of the Year -- Vicky Agorilla
IT Startup of the Year -- Giro Apps
IT Story of the Year -- 2010 Automated Elections
IT Product of the Year -- iPad
IT Lifetime Achievement Award  -- Augusto 'Gus' C. Lagman

(Source: Newsbytes.ph
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Cherry Mobile has been bold this year by releasing Windows-OS based unit 2nd quarter of the year 2010, and then an Android OS powered mobile phone and tablet.

Giro Apps is founded by 2 lawyers, Yves Gonzales and Laura Noel. Yves Gonzales is also the head of MMDA Communications Group and Technology Head.

Augusto 'Gus' C. Lagman is one of the people behind The Movement for Good Governance.

I just want to comment as to why they chose to give the IT Product of the Year award to iPad. I mean no question about how wonderful iPad is, but wouldn't it be more fitting to give it to Cherry Mobile's Android tablet since they chose it to be the Company of the Year, and it's also a Filipino brand.

Start of Start-up Community in Cebu?

There are formal / non-formal software developers group in Cebu (Philippines). But as to 'active' software start-up community, we can say that it is almost non-existent. I'll call it 'software start-up' because some people would say that technology involves more scientific research and all the hoopla.

Last week, there was a 'start-up meetup' which was facilitated by Tina Amper and others. Alvin Gendrano, Director for SQL Server Business Management at Microsoft, was then the guest speaker. Then, this week there was a repeat meet-up, then this time it's Brian Tan Seng of 98Labs was the guest speaker. I was not there, but some friends were. One of them gave me the above video.

I have nothing much to say since I was not there, but this is just to give us an idea that start-up community in Cebu will be activated -- maybe soon or in years.

You might say you're not techy so why get involved. When we say start-up community, it involves more than the tech / developer people -- marketing, idea people, and other sorts of personalities are needed from idea brainstorming to getting a product out to the world. So, yes, it is something we should be watching out, and get involve with even if as an audience. =)

iLumina LCD iTV's Inventor -- Brian Quebengco's Talk at Roofcamp

I'm not really awed by his iTV invention, to think that they're probably the first team to build one and Google TV is their direct head-on rival in this product. I mean naming your product with 'i' at the first cannot stop me from stereotyping them as members of Steve Jobs' cult. Come on, there are more product names than prefixing it with letter 'i'. And, they're using Android OS -- so 'i' and android kind of don't sound right to me.

But you need to hear Brian Quebengco talk. I may not be sold to his Ilumina LCD iTV for now, but his vision of creating a Philippine consumer electronic product to become a global brand is not an everyday event in Filipinos' lives. For a person to create something against all odds just to put his country on the map is what we need most today so we should rally behind him and his team, Inovent. If we have Manny Pacqiauo in boxing, then Ilumina LCD iTV will be ours in the consumer electronics area.

To get a glimpse of Brian Quebengco's passion, below is a phrase quoted from StartupDigest's Developer Profile.

7) What got you into technology?

I’m a Human Resource graduate.  But as an Entrepreneur, we don’t think “technology.”  Rather, it was my passion to champion Philippine ideas.  It just so happened that giving the Philippines something it doesn’t have, which is its own CE brand, was the battle i wanted to fight.  This by default led me to figure out what technology would be needed by the world that the other players haven’t introduced yet.  It took me years to find the right technology.

The following video of Brian Quebengco's talk is from Roofcamp gathering. His talk will not fail to make you feel to be proud to be Filipino again. More than his iTV invention, it's his compassion for the Philippines that makes Philippines still has the few good men, that we still have hope.

Roofcamp 8 with Brian Quebengco (INOVENT) from Roofcamp on Vimeo.

Follow their stories here http://inoventrevolution.wordpress.com.

A Filipino Developer's Take on App Store -- is it another bubble?

Digital Sinigang: Beyond the App Store: "The bad news is that the AppStore is not a gold mine--with over 250,000 apps available, its going to be a long shot for an indie or a start-up to be successful. The good news is that Apple gave birth to a whole new set of other 'side' businesses that went with the AppStore revolution--you just need to be creative. Remember the saying 'don't put all your eggs in one basket'? As any entrepreneur will tell you, diversification is one of the keys to long term success. Now that you've started your own app-making business and released your first iPhone app, here are some more business ideas that 'could' go hand in hand with your long term plans."

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I first came across about iPhone Apps, or mobile apps in general, to be just another dotcom bubble from Tomi Ahone's blog. Then, came different variations of Tomi Ahone's post -- some agree and others disagree.

Then, I came across the post, Beyond the App Store, of @egarayblas of Kuyi Mobile. I think I was able to download 1 game application, Jumpbot, from them which my 2-year old boy enjoyed playing. The post somehow confirmed that making money from iPhone apps is not a walk-in-the-park. Well of course, his post is not something new. But the thing I find interesting about it is that it came straight from a Filipino iPhone app developer. It also gives me more incite on how the local tech start-up operates.