Manila, Philippines - Bambuhay, a social enterprise that is leading the way in sustainable business creating inclusive and eco-friendly bamboo straw captured first prize at the national finals of the Entrepreneurship World Cup competition held recently in the Philippines.
Mark Gersava, founder of Bambuhay captured the first place and advances to the next round of the global competition against national winners from 184 countries.
Bambuhay is a social enterprise that is leading the way in sustainable business creating inclusive and eco-friendly solutions to heal the planet and build opportunities by empowering marginalized communities.
Bambuhay emerged victorious from a pool of 506 contestants who applied – each receiving access to free virtual training services to help them take their venture to the next level.
Other finalists at EWC Philippines included:
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Burket is a B2B Market network that automatically matches businesses to the right products/services or customer using social network interface thru the help of AI.
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Jungle Financial Technology, Inc. provides a peer-to-peer checkout lending platform that enables consumers and merchants to make non-credit card term payment transactions and investors to grow their money by earning interest through POS financing.
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Plastic Flamingo is a French social enterprise with a pilot project in the Philippines. They collect every type of plastic waste in the environment and from local communities. They focus on creating soft plastics, ‘multi-layers packaging’, ‘laminates’ or sachets.
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Playtribe is a booking platform that helps fitness coaches and communities list their fitness classes and get customers. To get their classes listed, coaches and communities usually have to partner up with a studio, then work out a deal.
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Medikally IT Services would like to start a technology initiative both in healthcare and business operations.
Judges for the competition were:
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Maria Celia Jacob - Certified Life Coach and Creative Entrepreneur at Brownroots Brews
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Joli Barbosa - the managing Director of FrandBrand Solutions
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Miguel Lopez -President of The 2030 Project & worked in Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship as Programs Officer
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Junya Hada - Japanese Businessman & Investor - NEC Philippines
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Shay Yellin - an Israeli Media & Business Entrepreneur / Co Founder of Trampoline Park Phils
“Introspection is important when planning a start-up, as you have to know yourself in order to create an idea that will match your personality as a founder.” said Justin Lim, CEO of the Veer Immersive Technologies.
“Mental Health and a positive outlook is key when building a company”
More than 102,000 contestants from 184 countries entered the Entrepreneurship World Cup. The initiative combines a broad-reaching pitch competition, aimed at ventures ranging from the idea stage to growth stage, with a virtual accelerator program to help all participants launch, strengthen and scale their enterprises. Global Finalists will face off against one another at the Misk Global Foundation ahead of Global Entrepreneurship Week in November 2019.
EWC is an initiative led by the Global Entrepreneurship Network and Misk Foundation with support from a collection of the national and global partnerships, including the Global Educational and Leadership Foundation and GSVlabs.