Annual beach gathering trains sight on environment issues

MANILA, Philippines - The Geeks on a Beach (GOAB) 2017 annual gathering of local and foreign tech startup luminaries, to be held this year in Puerto Princesa in Palawan, will seek to harness the global startup community’s smarts and savvy to fix the world’s environmental woes.

Tina Amper of TechTalks.ph, the group that started the GOAB in 2013, said that this year’s summit is again expected to lure foreign tech startup personalities, as well as successful Filipino entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley, who can share their expertise and wisdom in the discussions that will emphasize tech enterprise ideas to address global environment problems. 

“Aside from gathering tech entrepreneurs and professionals as we have done in previous Geeks on a Beach, we hope serial entrepreneurs, Filipino-Americans from Silicon Valley, will provide more heft to the event,” Amper said.

“We have about 120 people now, a combination of sponsors, speakers, and people who already bought tickets,” Amper said. Registration is up to Aug. 24, when the two-day GOAB summit starts.

“It’s open, the capacity is about 500 to 600,” Amper said. “This year, we want to focus on the founders because that’s what the (local) entrepreneurs want... so they can learn from them.”

She said two successful serial Fil-Am tech entrepreneurs – Yobie Benjamin and Aldo Carrascoso – are coming to the 5th GOAB summit.

“Yobie Benjamin, among others, had invested in a startup that protects wildlife in Kenya and mangrove forests in Brazil and earning carbon credits in the process. You have to listen to how he does it,” Amper said.

Benjamin, a graduate of the University of the Philippines, was named 2015 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum.

Carrascoso is co-founder of GlycoProX and Veem.

GlycoProX is on the verge of developing a computation plus instrumentation-based cure for breast cancer. Its co-founders have a track record with value creation of half a billion dollars.  

Carrascoso was also founder/CTO of Jukin Technologies/Jukin Media – which include viral video brands FailArmy, World’s Funniest and others. He is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor and technology disruptor. Prior to Jukin, he founded a number of ventures in global B2B matchmaking, international trading/finance and business process outsourcing. A graduate of Ateneo de Manila University, Carrascoso has an MBA from Babson University.

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), which will again be a major supporter of the GOAB 2017 in Puerto Princesa, will present the Philippine government’s programs to advance ICT in the country.

“We also hope to push DICT projects that we launched recently. These projects like Pipol Konek National Free Wifi Program, the National Government Portal, and the National Broadband Project are designed to give birth to digital Filipinos,” said DICT Undersecretary Mon Ibrahim.