By Victorino Soriano / Chief Trade-Industry Development Specialist Knowledge Processing Division / DTI-EMB

Published on Business Mirror

19 September 2017

In Photo: Jonathan E. Chua (right), BeamAndGo CEO, receives his award for being the Startup with O2O Best Practice from Pei-Ti Hu (left), Deputy Director General of Small and Medium Enterprise Administration, Ministry of Economic Affairs of Chinese Taipei during the Apec SME 020 Forum held in Viet Nam on September 10.

BEAMANDGO, a start-up from the Philippines offering remittance service that allows overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to buy digital gift certificates (GCs) for their families back home, bested 10 other start-ups from five Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) member-economies to win the Startup with O2O Best Practice recognition during the Apec SME Online-to-Offline (O2O) Forum held at the Sheraton Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City,Vietnam, on September 10.

Other start-ups who made their pitch were from Chile, Chinese Taipei, Malaysia, Russia and Vietnam.

Presenting before the Apec O2O Board of Directors, BeamAndGo CEO Jonathan E. Chua said the start-up company was established to provide a better way for OFWs to support their loved ones in the Philippines other than just providing cash.

“Our goal is to enable OFWs to buy food, medicine, health care, insurance, education and other essentials for their family in a way that is affordable, convenient, transparent, and sustainable,” Chua said.

With BeamAndGo.com, OFWs can buy digital GCs for supermarkets and pharmacies that will be sent to the mobile phones of Filipinos back home. Once the digital GCs are received, the OFWs’ family member can immediately redeem them at participating stores.

The recently concluded Apec SME O2O Forum was the fifth event of the six O2O series of events scheduled for this year. It aims to 1) enhance the digital competitiveness and resilience of startups; 2) provide start-ups a platform to present their business plans to the Board of Directors; and 3) raise awareness of challenges that small, medium enterprises and start-ups may encounter in the digital economy.

The Board of Directors were represented by large corporate leaders and experts from the Hong Kong, Thailand, United States, and Viet Nam.

In the previous year, Medifi, another startup from the Philippines, also won in Apec 020 Forum in Peru.

The last series of the Apec SME 020 Forum for the year will be held in the Philippines next month.