Katipunan Forum
OPINION
Katipunan Forum - Building a Technology Startup
Culture at the Grassroots
by Dennis Posadas
We’ve all heard
these names: Intel, Apple, Microsoft,
HP, Yahoo, E-Bay. There are also names like Applied Materials, Cognex,
Varian, IDEO and other
companies manufacturing advanced equipment, software, materials and
biotechnology. What do these
companies have in
common ? Answer : these companies came
out of a business formation process called the Stanford Silicon
Valley model.
In the 1940’s,
Stanford engineering dean Frederick Terman funded the business idea of two of
his graduate students, Bill Hewlett
and David Packard to
supply oscillators to Walt Disney1,3. Thus, Hewlett Packard was born
– but more importantly, the Stanford
Silicon Valley model
of producing startup companies came into being. Located in an area south of San
Francisco, “the Valley”
as it is called, is
now home to hundreds if not thousands of companies producing software,
hardware, biotechnology and other
high technology and
scientific products.
The Stanford Silicon
Valley model is based on the idea that if you locate sources of capital and
business incubation near a center
of world class
research, you can attract technology startups to setup in that area. This formula of commercializing research
done by the academe,
has been used (with some variation) in areas like the Boston MIT-Route 128
area, UTexas-Austin,
ITRI – Taiwan, etc.
A study by the Bank of Boston2 estimates the effect of companies
formed by MIT alumni as follows :
“If the companies founded by MIT
graduates and faculty formed an independent nation, the revenues produced by
the
companies
would make that nation the 24th largest economy in the world. The
4,000 MIT companies employ roughly
1.1
billion and have annual world sales of $232 billion”.
2
In the Philippine
setting, academe and industry as well as Filipinos living abroad have long
thought of ways to copy this model
locally. Dado Banatao
and other visionary Philippine technology leaders often espouse the same idea.
Efforts such as
the UP Technopark
are a good start, for we now realize that we have technology gems in our
academic research programs
that are worth
commercializing. However, ingraining the right attitude and culture down
to the grassroots is just as important
as having the
technology and capital.
Let me illustrate
this with an example. In Stanford and UC Berkeley, when graduate students do
their thesis defense,
venture capitalists
and industry people are often in the audience to spot potential opportunities.
Research institutions like
Xerox PARC and HP
are just in the neighborhood. Technology experts, venture capitalists and
industry people often eat at
the same restaurants,
go to the same groceries to shop and are basically next door neighbors.
Enter the Katipunan Forum. For
years we have seen Philippine university professors who try to engage industry
through yearly
visits, speeches at luncheons
or dinners, and also through consulting opportunities. Academe-industry linkage is often limited to
internships and scholarships,
all of which are still very important activities worth pursuing. However, if we
are really serious
about encouraging technology
startups, we have to introduce new ways of doing things. We need a new
culture, and a
venue for exchanging
ideas on a regular basis. We
need to identify structural problems, not only limiting
opportunities to selected
individuals who have access to technology and capital, but develop a venue for
equalizing the
playing field – giving
opportunities to all.
I had several conversations
with some academe researchers and industry folks about commercializing some
academe developed
technologies, and the
comments I heard were something like this :
“Buti na lang may nagiisip ng
ganyan.”
“Kaya natin gawin yan dito, pero
sino naman ang bibili ?”
“Hindi ko alam kung may demand.“
“May ganyang research na pala sa
UP.”
“Where are the people from UP (and
other academic institutions) who can help us ?” – question in a SEIPI meeting
We have the technology. We
have the capital. We have some market opportunities. What we did not have was a
venue for regular
communication, relationship development and idea exchange. The Katipunan Forum is that
venue.
If you have always thought as
an individual that a technology
startup culture could be unleashed in the Philippine setting,
then the Katipunan Forum is
for you. We are not asking you to represent your company or institution, we are
asking you to
join this movement
because you personally believe in it.
Because if we all believe,
then it will happen.
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sources :
1) “Creating
a Twentieth Century Technical Community: Frederick Terman’s Silicon Valley”,
Nov. 1995, AnnaLee Saxenian,
University of
California at Berkeley
2) “MIT
: The Impact of Innovation”, March 1997, Economics Department, Bank Boston
3) “A
Wellspring Called Stanford”, BusinessWeek