By Espie Angelica A. de Leon
Ten tech companies including seven start-ups from the Philippines will join the local delegation to ConnecTechAsia Summit, the largest industry event in the region, scheduled from June 26-28 at the Marina Bay Sands and Suntec Singapore in Singapore.
These local firms will get the chance to showcase their products, services, and innovations to the regional market and network with technopreneurs, tech experts, businessmen, and investors from around the world.
Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) undersecretary Monchito Ibrahim made the announcement at a press conference for ConnecTechAsia held at Makati Shangrila Manila on May 30.
ConnecTechAsia fuses three major industry events into one mega summit expected to attract more than 1,700 companies from 52 countries. These three events are CommunicAsia which focuses on telecommunications technologies, BroadcastAsia for the broadcast media, and NXTAsia which showcases emerging and disruptive technologies such as IoT, blockchain, AI, data science, and others.
Among these companies are software development outsourcing firm Advanced World Solutions, field force automation technology provider Mobile Optima, software development firm HY Brain, Merlin Solutions, which hosts a suite of products and services for ensuring retention between brands and customers, Rumarocket Limited which custom builds Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence solutions to help employers gain insights on job applicants and existing personnel, full-suite human resource management system provider Payruler, real-time offline shopper and consumer insights provider Snapcart, and BPO company Magellan Solutions.
?These are very promising startups who we feel are now actually ready to go regional and hopefully soon will become global digital players,? said Ibrahim. ?We hope to actually see a Filipino unicorn coming up someday.?
These companies will make up the Philippine Pavilion at ConnecTechAsia?s exhibit space where more than 1,700 other exhibitors from more than 60 countries and regions will also display their innovations.
?It?s about sharing to the world that there?s a lot of talent to be found here, a lot of good people with brains, with the capacity to think as well as any foreigner,? said Rumarocket CEO Kathleen Yu.
According to Ibrahim, this is the third consecutive year that they are sending local tech firms to participate in the exhibit.
?Two of the tech startups that we brought to the event last year got funding,? he said. The rest meanwhile, have grown in the last year and Ibrahim believes their participation in last year?s exhibit contributed to their growth.
Joining them in the Philippine delegation this year are senior digital leader and evangelist Bettina Quimson as well as PLDT chief data privacy officer Leah Camilla R. Besa-Jimenez who will be among the conference speakers.
Quimson will be part of the panel discussion on ?The Tokenized Economy: How to Separate Hype from Facts.? Meanwhile, Jimenez will join the discussion on ?The Stakeholder?s Agenda: Where Should We Travel To?? which will tackle industry challenges, industry policy, and cross-sectoral hurdles.
?We just need to be seen and we need to actually maintain that visibility in all of the markets where we?re in, and also the prime movers in our own Philippine digital economy to be seen,? said Ibrahim.
