THE Philippine delegation, led by the Department of Trade and Industry-Export Marketing Bureau (DTI-EMB), joined the Asean-Korea Startup Week as it strengthens the start-up community in information and communications technology (ICT) among the ASEAN member-countries on September 13 at the Startup Campus B2F, Pangyo Techno Valley, Seongnam City, South Korea.

The delegation, headed by DTI-EMB Director Senen M. Perlada, was composed of Philippine startups Cropital, GetMoreph Inc., Medtrix of HYBrain Development Corp. and Qwikwire Corp.

The conference held during the start-up week was attended by officials from eight Asean nations—Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam—and 54 managing directors of start-ups in the ICT sector. The officials shared their own policies, initiatives, and incentives to promote ICT start-ups in their respective countries. The participants also built networks with their Korean counterparts and pitched business ideas for possible Korean venture capitals.

The Asean-Korea Startup Week was organized by the Asean-Korea Centre and Gyeonggi Center for Creative Economy and Innovation (GCCEI). The event was composed of three programs: The Investment Facilitation Seminar, Demo Day for Asean Startups, and Industrial visits to ICT start-up incubators in Korea.

Two Philippine start-ups, Medtrix and GetMoreph, were among the 16 Asean start-ups that made their pitch. Both systems are designed to maximize the efficiency of the users, shortens the sales cycle, cuts sales cost, improves customer relationship and manage the sales team better.

Medtrix Healthcare is an innovative digital technology that aims to help pharmaceutical companies actively engage health-care professionals in their medical communications. The company is combining digitalization and platform technology to meet scientific requirements.

GetMoreph is a real-estate technology company in the Philippines that runs a cloud-based software, called MiDash, for real-estate developers and MiRealty for real-estate brokers.

Perlada presented the Philippine Startup Ecosystem during one of the forums. He also gave an impromptu response, in behalf of the Asean government delegates, to the message of Mayor Eun Soo Mi of Seongnam City, South Korea.

He congratulated Mayor Eun Soo-mi for putting up together the Startup Week in Seongnam City. He commended Korea’s startup industry and praised the city for strengthening Korea’s start-up ecosystem. The Pangyo Techno Valley in Seongnam City is also known as the Silicon Valley of Korea.

Alongside Medtrix and GetMoreph, Qwikwire and Cropital also built networks for possible business collaborations. Qwikwire, a fintech and real estate is an enterprise solution for companies such as real-estate developers and business- process outsourcing.

Cropital, a fintech for agriculture, is a crowdfunding platform for smallholder farmers, connecting small farmers in need of production loans to lenders online.