The winners of this year’s Philippine Startup Challenge (PSC) will each receive P500,000 worth of grants from the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), the agency said.
The annual startup competition, which started in 2016, aims to encourage and support Filipinos to create innovative and relevant ICT products and services that may develop into viable business ventures and potentially solve social problems.
“Your DICT shall continue to promote innovation and encourage entrepreneurship in the country to achieve our long-standing goal of establishing a thriving ecosystem for all Filipino startups,” DICT Secretary Gregorio “Gringo” B. Honasan II said in a statement.
For his part, DICT Undersecretary for Digital Philippines Emmanuel Rey Caintic said that the initiative will help boost the startup ecosystem in the country.
“We look forward to fostering InnovNation—where Philippines will be made stronger and more resilient by supporting the next set of budding technology entrepreneurs,” Caintic said.
The PSC, now on its sixth run, is divided into two categories, the Student category and the Professional category.
Under the Student Category, each team is composed of three students in Senior High School or in College levels, and one mentor who must be employed in the same university during the time of competition.
Under the Professional Category, each team should have minimum of two and maximum of four members with a designated team leader. Students with one professional member in the team may also join under the Professional category.
According to the DICT, the five winners under the Professional category will receive equity-free grant worth of P2.5 million in total from the agency’s Philippine Startup Grant Fund.
Winners will also receive ICT equipment, cloud credits, and mentoring opportunities from the industry partners.
This year’s challenge is in collaboration with the Philippine Software Industry Association (PSIA), Ignite House of Innovations, QBO Innovation Hub, StartUp Village, Spring Valley, Huawei, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, and Philippine Society of Information Technology Educators (PSITE).
Meanwhile, the Philippine Startup Challenge 2021 has extended anew its deadline for entries.
For the professional category, the deadline of submission of entries has been moved to Oct. 7, while the deadline for the student category is on Dec. 30.