The Scholars Technopreneurship Training Program (STTP) Kicks Off with 101 Passionate Students
The Scholars Technopreneurship Training Program (STTP) started its 1st leg of its Training Bootcamps last July 20, 2024 at the Iloilo Convention Center in Mandurriao, Iloilo City with 101 college students from 2nd year to 4th year joining the event. The STTP is a 5 month training program for DOST Scholars of Region VI. This program is initiated by the Department of Science and Technology – Science Education Institute (DOST-SEI), in collaboration with DOST Region VI and the Leave a Nest Philippines, wherein its goal is to train young university students into becoming future technopreneurs by instilling in them the concepts and mindset required to build their own startup companies who could then solve various issues that we face in the world – especially using the researcher’s mindset that the Leave a Nest Group lives by, and through actual examples and stories that are part of the history of the company. With this, the long term goal is to be able to create more companies in the Philippines with a deep technology and research & development focus, in order to give our scientists, researchers, and engineers more opportunities to use their skills and knowledge inside the country which will contribute directly to the development of the Philippines.
Starting from the Kickoff Bootcamp this July, there will be 5 Bootcamps in total going all the way to October which will be covering various topics like mindset, team building, planning, leadership, presentation, and etc. In November, the students will then be showcasing their hard work by presenting their pitch decks in front of an audience and a panel of judges during the STTP Demo Day. A total of 3 teams will be chosen as winners and will be receiving support from DOST to help incorporate their ideas into real startup companies. Other prizes are to be revealed at a later date.
The bootcamp details are as follows:
| Bootcamp 1 | Kickoff Module Module 1: Mindset for Solving Issues in Society Module 2: Issue Excavation Module 3: Solution Brainstorming |
| Bootcamp 2 | Module 4: Visayas TECH PLANTER Demo Day Module 5: Learning from the Senpais |
| Bootcamp 3 | Module 6: Team Building Module 7: Planning Module 8: Negotiation and Collaboration |
| Bootcamp 4 | Module 9: Leadership |
| Bootcamp 5 | Module 10: Basics of Business and Accounting Module 11: Intellectual Property Module 12: Vision / Mission Creation Module 13: Getting your point Across |
| Final | STTP Demo Day |
Engr. Albert (top-left), Dr. Biyo (right), and Dr. Naomi (bottom-left) giving their welcoming remarks during the STTP Kickoff
The Kickoff started with welcoming remarks from the DOST-SEI Director III and OIC Engr. Albert G. Mariño who warmly greeted all of the participants for coming to Iloilo for the training program. He expressed great expectations to the student participants hoping to see them grow and generate great startups that could help build the nation. He was then followed by DOST-SEI Consultant and Former Director Dr. Josette T. Biyo, the person who started this project 1 year ago, to give a brief background of the history of STTP and why this is being done. As someone who observed the success of last year’s implementation, she expects great things from the students this year as well as she hopes to see them become great technopreneurs. Then, DOST Region VI Assistant Regional Director for Technical Operations Dr. Naomi Cossette Luis also gave her opening speech to encourage the student participants into committing their all for the next 5 months. She cited examples that the youth could very well relate to, which is videogames, bringing the concept of bosses and levels as a metaphor to tackle their long arduous journey ahead.
Dr. Yevgeny (left) and Mr. Toyoshima (right) giving a presentation during the STTP Kickoff
Finally, Dr. Yevgeny Aster Dulla, Managing Director of the Leave a Nest Philippines, gave a brief explanation of Leave a Nest and why these kinds of projects are being done in the Philippines, while also highlighting why students like them are very important in shaping the future by becoming future technopreneurs. Before the morning session ended the students also received a special lecture from Mr. Yukio Toyoshima, Special Advisor of PwC Japan LLC, who cited various examples of big companies in Japan who started as small startups as well back in the days, such as Hitachi and SONY, encouraging the students to become the next big industry in the Philippines in the future.
Module 1 lecture and workshop. Each student presented their own QPMI cycle in front of the audience.
In the afternoon, the students started their first Module for the program which introduced to them the QPMI Mindset (Question, Passion, Mission, Innovation) – one of the core concepts of the Leave a Nest Group – which helped them in identifying the issues that they would like to passionately tackle, as well as people that they would like to work with to innovate together. All participants presented their own QPMI cycle in front of the crowd in order for each of them to get to know the issues of each and every student, as they would later be grouped together to form teams who would solve a common issue together.
Module 2 and 3 lectures and workshops about the issue that the participants want to solve and how they plan to solve it.
On the 2nd day of the Bootcamp, the students then tackled 2 more modules which were about digging deeper into the issues they want to face, and thinking up of their own unique solution to these issues. The students were asked to form groups which would also be the group they will be going with for the entire 5 month training. By the end of the day, a total of 16 groups of future technopreneurs were formed, each having their own issues from various fields while also having unique solutions to these issues.
The 2nd Bootcamp will be held in less than a month on August 10-11 wherein the students will be observing how a real pitching competition is done in the VISAYAS Tech Planter Demo Day 2024 which will also be held in the same venue. The students will also be meeting various senior startups both from the Philippines and Globally who would be sharing their experience and knowledge in the startup industry in order to help these future startup founders to grow and flourish.
For details about the Finalists and Lightning Talks speakers of Visayas TECH PLANTER, please visit the link below. Stay tuned for more upcoming news regarding this event.
Visayas TP News Release Link
For any inquiries or concerns regarding STTP, please contact the following members:
- Ronrick Arayata ([email protected]) Human Development Division, Leave a Nest Philippines
- Bill Joseph Mercado ([email protected]) Education Development Division, Leave a Nest Philippines