The game of innovation

MANILA, Philippines - Believing in the limitless creative capacity of the youth, the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde came up with an idea to challenge and inspire the country’s brilliant young minds to innovate design solutions to solve today’s most pressing social issues.

Guided by the core concepts of the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – poverty alleviation, education, health and social protection – and its transition into the Sustainable Development Goals Post-2015, the learning institution conceived the Benilde Prize for Design Innovation and the Lasallian Innovator Award, a two-pronged initiative for students from all over the country to pitch their ideas on how to affect positive change.

The Benilde Prize is open to all high schools, colleges and universities, with a grant of P500,000 awarded to proposals, in the form of an invention, an application, an exhibition, a process or a system, which can give a novel take in addressing problems within the scope of the MDGs.

Likewise, the Lasallian Innovator Award, which is open to all students in the De La Salle family of schools, operates on the same premise of creating societally inclusive, impactful and relevant ideas from student social designers. An amount of P200,000 is given which, as with the Benilde Prize Grant, will be used for the initial development of the innovation under the guidance and monitoring of mentors experienced in the field.

Held for the first time, these competitions were partly inspired by the saint whom the school is named after. In the 19th century France, Benildus Romançon, later known as St. Benilde after his canonization by Pope Paul VI in 1967, wanted to share the word of God to a deaf student. So, reasonably enough, St. Benilde learned sign language.

Sixty-four entries were submitted; ten were eventually shortlisted for the awards. The proponent teams were flown to Manila to undergo the rigorous three-day Benilde Boot Camp, where their ideas were conceptually and creatively challenged by mentors who gave expedient advice on how to go from the light bulb of an idea to actualizing it in the market and society.

The mentors were Enfants du Mekong Entrepreneurs Social Impact consulting lead Emma Stokking, ClicknComplain co-founder Rachel Ellibot, Virlanie Foundation executive director Peachy Paquing, Portfolio MNL founder Rina Malonzo, Benilde associate dean for New Media Abigail Mapua-Cabanilla and Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) corporate affairs head Jay Jaboneta.

After the boot camp, the teams did their revisions and presented to a panel of jurors who raised queries and suggestions on how to improve the proposals. Composed of Karl Satinitigan of the Office of Senator Paolo Benigno Aquino IV, Georgina Ann Hernandez of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, Nerissa Esguerra of the National Economic and Development Authority, Jon Gales of UN-Habitat, and Anna Meloto-Wilke of Human Heart Nature, the experts had extensive experience and knowledge on the very problems that the teams aimed to address.

Palpable excitement changed to buzzing anticipation and then joy as three bright students from Dumaguete City – Khali Santia, Queenie Guibao and Cindy Bonachita, and their mentor, Bron Teves, of Silliman University – bagged first place for the Benilde Prize.

Their project was an ingenious board game that makes mathematics fun and easy to learn. They call it the Bamboard, a multi-ruleset sport made up of bamboo cubes and cylinders with numbers and operations arranged on a matrix. In appearance, it looks very much like chess or checkers but with more freedom in form. The idea is for it to encourage children to stay in school and reduce the number of pupils dropping out, and to provide a source of livelihood for bamboo craftsmen in Negros Oriental.

Bamboard is reminiscent of Damath, a board game played all over the Philippines, which infuses mathematical concepts with the game of checkers, but was made into a more versatile and almost infinitely diverse game.

Architecture students Mark Ryan Jervoso, Arnold Jr. Gomez and John Clemenn Bugcat of the College of Saint Benilde in Manila were awarded the Lasallian Inovator Award with their project, Green Roof, a proposal to explore the feasibility of using parts of the buri palm for sustainable and typhoon-resistant low-cost roofing material, returning to traditional construction but reinforced with studies for the development of what could be a sustainable local industry.

In addition to the major grants, three Special Citation awardees were selected and granted P50,000 each.

Team Still Mind, composed of Mark Glenn Cabrera, Sunshine Jeiel Pangan and Fretzie Cena of the University of the Immaculate Conception of Davao, had the idea of creating mobile game application that pre-assesses inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity symptoms of children to aid in the diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Another mobile application called Disaster Tycoon, a game that contains preparedness information for different types of disasters, was pitched by Raffy Odani, Jeilinne de Guzman and Treshen Lugtu, also from the University of the Immaculate Conception of Davao.

To combat the growing number of cases of HIV and the stigma it carries, University of St. La Salle’s Mark Vincent Coo, Natasha Nina Fuentebella and Erica Aragon from Bacolod City came up with Ban Aids, a mobile application to promote public health teachings, campaigns and educational group sessions on the currently cureless, though manageable, disease.

The Bamboard and the buri roof make use of materials and concepts that are existing, while the Still Mind, Disaster Tycoon and Ban Aids take advantage of present technology, reinterpreted to become potentially significant game-changers.

Through it all, it’s a consolidated effort, with the competition supported by the National Economic and Development Authority and private corporations with a track of being involved in activities for youth empowerment, such as SMART Communications, Primer Group of Companies, Fully Booked, Power Mac Center and Philippine Business for Social Progress.

“The creative and passionate youth are out there, brimming with ideas, growing from the things they love to the advocacies they believe in, and they need to realize that making a difference is not as clichéd as it sounds, but something that is probable and within their power,” enthused De La Salle College of Saint Benilde president and chancellor Bro. Dennis Magbanua.

“The Benilde Prize and the Lasallian Innovator Award are platforms to draw ideas from aspiring individuals to remind them that possibilities and avenues to leave a significant and positive mark on Philippine society are ever present,” said De La Salle College of St. Benilde vice chancellor for advancement Robin Serrano.

Lasallian Innovator Award winners Mark Ryan Jervoso, John Clemenn Bugcat and Arnold Jr. Gomez of College of Saint Benilde explain the Green Roof project.