DOST- CSU ITecH 2018 Technopreneurship Summer Camp begins

In a bid to find the next rising technology-based start-ups such as Grab, Uber, or Lazada in Caraga State University (CSU), the Innovation and Technopreneurship Hub (ITecH) launched the two-month Technopreneurship Summer Camp 2018 which runs from June 11 to July 31, 2018 at the Mechatronics Building in CSU.

ITecH is a joint project of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and CSU. ITecH, as a technology business incubator (TBI), aims to capacitate the students who founded their respective ‘Start-Ups’, through a series of lectures on entrepreneurship,  specifically on technology entrepreneurship (Technopreneurship), with speakers who are entrepreneurs, business consultants and government leaders in Caraga Region.

The summer camp is an extensive two months of lecture series, workshops and prototype development of the incubatees’ designed technologies. The camp shall help the incubatees in both the business aspect and the technology development. Seven (7) start-ups or 21 information technology and engineering students are included in the first batch of the summer camp. The CSU faculty are also invited to join the lecture series.

Speakers and mentors for 2018 Technopreneurship Summer Camp include: Ms. Jocelyn F. Yee, a well-known business woman in Butuan whose family owns a number of business establishments in the region shared the mindset of entrepreneurs. She talked on the mentality and the attitude of the rich and the poor, and how our state of mind can affect our lifestyle. She highlighted importance of a positive mindset, and “can do” attitude to be successful in life.  

Ms. Rosanna Cezar, owner of Madyaw Kadyaw Souvenir Shoppe in Butuan City, shared her experiences as an entrepreneur. She shared how hardships motivated her to pursue entrepreneurship..

Hon. Cristina “Ched” Romarate-Arcillas, Board Member, and a three-time Mayor of Tubod, Surigao del Norte Province shared great insights on “Developing a Business Model”. Ms. Romarate-Arcillas is the Vice President of the Romarate Group of Companies, a family-owned corporation which is based in Butuan City.

Ms. Cheerlyn S. Agot delivered an equally powerful talk on “Business Validation”. Ms. Agot is the proprietor of JCB Express Solutions, a consultancy firm and was a Regional Coordinator of SMARTMATIC; Project Consultant of the Association of Caraga Coconut Entrepreneurs and Stakeholders Inc.; and Secretary General of the Butuan City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Foundation, Inc. in Butuan City.

CSU embarks on the technopreneurship to usher to the university’s bid in becoming an entrepreneurial university. Engr. Jeffrey T. Dellosa, CSU ITech Project Leader notes that this is the first time in the university where lecture series on entrepreneurship and coding bootcamp is being held for the incubatees or start-ups and for interested faculty members. “We need to invest in our students, to build upon their ideas future businesses, and for themselves to become future technopreneurs. We are hoping that our students will follow the footsteps of many start-up founders such as Larry Page and Sergey Brin who were once students prior to founding Google. We always believe in ITECH that there are many problems in our society today that our students can help solve through their start-up ideas,” Engr. Dellosa further stated.

“We are blessed to have speakers who volunteered to be mentors in the lecture series, and DTI Agusan del Norte and Caraga Region have been instrumental in making our speakers available to us”, added Engr. Dellosa.

Other team members of the ITECH Project are Dr. Rolyn C. Daguil, Ms. June Pearl Achacaso, Ms. Glyrhiz Mariel Tabamo. Anyone interested to join the 2018 Summer Camp may refer to the schedule below:

Week 1: Introduction to Business Model Canvass and Validation

Week 1, Session 1.

Resource Persons: Ms. June Pearl Achacoso, Ms. Glyrhiz Tabamo and Engr. Jeffrey T. Dellosa

The first week was dedicated on one-on-one consultation between the ITECH project team and the Start-ups in the university. The activity included polishing the ideas of the incubatees and to working on in advance the business model canvass and validation.

Week 2: Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship

Week 2, Session 2:

A. Entrepreneurial Mind-Setting. Speakers:  Ms. Jocelyn Yee and Ms. Rosanna Cezar

This session shall include awakening the entrepreneurial mindset of each founder. The goal of this session is to make the incubatees realize the positive effects and outcomes of becoming an entrepreneur.

B. Business Formation and Registration. Speaker: Gemma Clarin, DTI Agusan del Norte

This session covers all the necessary requirements to start a business venture and what processes to undergo to formally start a business. The target output after this session is to have each start-up registered under the DTI.

Week 2, Session 3:

A. Business Model. Speaker: Hon. Cristina “Ched” Romarate-Arcillas

This includes an in-depth discussion of the business model each start-up is going for.

B. Business Validation (Discussion). Speaker:       Ms. Cheerlyn S. Agot

Tools, such as validation boards, shall be shared with the founders in this session to aid their validation in the following days.

Week 2, Session 4:

A. Human Resource Management. Speaker: Ms. Maria Elena S. Mercado

This session will tackle how to create a simple organizational chart for each startup, identify the role of each founder and formulate the mission, vision, goals and objectives of each start-up.

B. Unique Value Proposition. Speaker: Mr. Joseph Lester Lazarte

This session shall focus on the competitive advantage each startup can offer. In this session, they will learn to create their own tagline and establish a unique identity.

Week 2, Session 5:

A. Marketing and Branding. Speaker: Mr. Dave Franco

In this session, they will be taught basic marketing strategies and how to capitalize on the identity they have chosen. Incubatees will be able to produce a logo, color scheme and marketing strategy that they will use in the launch of their product/service.

Week 2, Session 6:

A. Costing and Pricing; Speaker: Ms. Cheerlyn S. Agot

In this session, incubatees will learn how to correctly price their products based on identified costs.

B. Basic Accounting, Speaker: Ms. Jane Francis P. Jaictin

Incubatees shall tackle basic accounting procedures to evaluate gains and losses.

Week 3

Advanced Courses on Web and Mobile Applications: Laravel, NodeJS and React

Week 3, Session 7: June 25-29, 2018

A. Lecture Series and Workshops. Speaker: Mr. Jerome B. Matias, Entrepreneur and Programmer

This six (6) - day session will provide an advanced course on specific programming languages that are popular today in both web and mobile applications. After this session, it is expected that the incubatees will be able to use the tools required to develop web and mobile applications based on

Week 4 to 7

Advanced Courses on Web and Mobile Applications: Laravel, NodeJS and React

Week 4 to Week 7, Session 8: June 30 to July 30, 2018

A. Coding Bootcamp. Facilitators: Engr. Dellosa, Dr. Daguil, Ms. Jennifer Sabugaa, Ms. Tabamo and Ms. Achacoso

The Start-Ups or the incubatees is given four weeks to work or develop their software, i.e. websites & mobile applications and hardware. Mentors are invited to help the teams.Specifically, the bootcamp shall focus on specific software that shall be needed to develop websites and mobile applications.

Week 8, Session 9: July 31, 2018

A. Pitching and Demo Day. Facilitators: Engr. Dellosa, Dr. Daguil, Ms. Jennifer Sabugaa, Ms. Tabamo and Ms. Achacoso

This will be the final session of the summer camp where teams will present their improved business ideas and prototypes for the mentors and the ITECH project team to review and suggests for further improvement. This shall also be the graduation day of the incubatees in the Summer Camp. ITech/piaea