The Department of Science and Technology-Information and Communications Technology (DOST-ICT Office), in partnership with Philippine Software Industry Association is currently conducting a series of Lean Startup 101 Boot Camps in different locations across the country to increase the capability of college professors in mentoring their students on how to build successful start-up companies.

The series kicked off last June 4 in Cebu City, followed by Iloilo City last June 20, and most recently in Baguio City last July 4.  

The remaining leg will be on July 18 in Cagayan de Oro City, July 21 in Quezon City, and July 25 in Davao City. This is the second straight year that ICT Office is staging this series of boot camps.

The workshops aims to help college professors, specifically in IT and Engineering courses, to understand the basic principles of  “Lean Startup” - a business methodology that Facebook, Instagram, and Dropbox used in their startup phase a decade ago.

Lean Startup Methodology helps start-up founders or technopreneurs to adapt their business quickly to the present needs of their target market based on feedback generated from a small number of customers.

Lean Startup 101 Boot Camps also serve as preparatory events for the 2015 Philippine Startup Challenge (PSC), a student startup competition promoting "technopreneurship" among college students. It dares students to create bolder, more creative software and internet-based innovations that will solve real problems and help improve the lives of individuals.

“One of DOST’s top priorities is to enable our Filipino students to become major contributors in nation building at a young age by encouraging them to actively be involved in creating more ICT innovative ideas and to have an entrepreneurial mindset early on. We consider professors/ teachers our best partners that we can rely on to achieve these goals,” said Emmy Lou Delfin, program manager for ICT Office’s  e-Innovation Group.

“We are hoping that after conducting this kind of activity, our country can produce skilled professionals, who can not only work in local or multinational companies, but also capable of building their world-class tech companies that can generate career opportunities in their locality,” Delfin added.

Through the boot camps, participants will learn how to eliminate wasteful practices and increase value producing practices during the product development phase so that startups can have a better chance at success without requiring large amounts of outside funding or elaborate business plans.

Lean Startup 101 Boot Camps and PSC are both activities under ICT Office’s Seed.Ph Program which promotes technopreneurship thru e-commerce and technology startup businesses.

Seed.Ph is among the DOST programs that will be featured in the upcoming 2015 National Science and Technology Week (NSTW) from July 24-28, 2015 at SMX Convention Center in Pasay City. For more information, visit www.nstw.dost.gov.ph and like us on Facebook at nstw2015. Free admission.  
(S &T Media Service)

PROFS  LEARN “LEAN STARTUP” METHOD IN DOST BOOT CAMP College professors provide their inputs in one of the exercises during the 2015 Lean Startup 101 Boot Camp in Iloilo City last June 20, 2015. The said workshop was organized by the Department of Science and Technology-Information and Communications Technology (DOST-ICT Office), and aims to help college professors understand the basic principles of an effective business methodology used by some of the world’s  top tech companies during their early years in the market. Boot camps were also held in Cebu City last June 4 and Baguio City last July 4. Succeeding legs will be in Cagayan De Oro City on July 18, Quezon City on July 21, and Davao City on July 25. (Photos from DOST-ICT Office’s e-Innovation Group)