MicrosoftPhilippines announced its collaboration with the Asian Institute of Management– Dado Banatao Incubator (AIM-DBI/The Incubator), designed to strengthen TheIncubator’s program and boost Philippine startups’ capabilities to improve their operations by leveraging innovative solutions powered by Microsoft’s cloud-based technology, Azure, through Rhipe Philippines, Inc., its cloud indirect provider.
The AIM-DBI is the most recent technology incubator under the Department of Science and Technology – Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and EmergingTechnology Research and Development (DOST-PCIERRD) which is currently located at a business school. The incubator, where startups create their technologies and run their businesses, provides needs-responsive and progressive programs that are geared towards startups with science, technology or engineering backgrounds that introduce new alternative solutions to existing and emerging problems.
TheIncubator provides founders with progressive service programs including mentorship, customized trainings, startup management program that would best fit their actual needs, rent-free office space as well as access toAIM’s campus facilities to better equip startups to develop their day-to-day operations.
The curriculum provided by the Microsoft-AIM-DBI partnership consists of three progressive program phases: the Nesting Program which digitally assists startups through cloud tools; the Building Program which provides startups with technology architecture creation, and peer-to-peer collaborative consultation and building; and Scaling Program, the final program which ensures that startups are market-ready with a marketplace for selling through Microsoft’s network of business partners.
According to Prim Paypon, executive director at AIM-DBI, to apply and qualified for the program, startups must meet The Incubator’s five criteria which include execution, aim, need, technology and financial support. They must be startups which have been doing their operations for at least 10 months or one year.
Paypon also said the program is not Manila-centered and is open to startups in the countryside. One of eight incubator-locators under the eight-core program happens to hail from Cebu. Qualified startups in the countryside are provided with accommodation aid to make sure that in the event that they are all required to be here, or to attend a management program, it would not be costly for them.
For the past 10 months since The Incubator revamped the program and reopened itMarch this year, it currently has 20 young startup-founders who talk about collaborative technology that it facilitates. There are eight incubator-locators in the firstCohort Program who are about to graduate, 11 in the Open Mentorship Program, and one Asian Development Bank (ADB) incubator-locator.
“We want to make sure that they are not only graduates of AIM but they are also investment-ready startups when they leave the campus and The Incubator,” said Paypon.
One startup that already enjoys the synergy of Microsoft and AIM-DBI is theFuturistic Aviation and Maritime Enterprises, Inc. (FAME), which has developed a monitoring system utilizing radio waves. Currently operating under theBuilding Program, FAME provides hardware and software platforms that track the location and activity of general aviation aircrafts and small boats, effectively monitoring vessels and reducing their propensity to accidents.
Through Rhipe Philippines, FAME’s operations are extensively supported by MicrosoftAzure, optimizing its solutions on Azure and enabling them to receive and retain data including speed, location, sensor data, messaging, and estimated time of arrival of airborne and maritime vehicles.
Soon to be integrated in FAME’s operations is Microsoft’s business analytics tool,Power BI, which will be providing easier management of information being transmitted from devices and sensors, making data easier to process into useful business insights.
UtilizingMicrosoft’s cloud technology, FAME has quickly developed its business and subsequently gained clients including an international aid agency for tracking vessels of small scale fishers, and one of the top utilities companies in thePhilippines for monitoring the lifespan of its transformers through the use of intelligent tracking devices.
