Vigattin Radio once again invited esteemed personalities from the tech world with anchor Ms. Arne Barcelo and guest anchor Alvin Barcelona. Joining them are Mr. Paul Rivera CEO and founder of Kalibrr.com, Ms. Erika Aquino Director of sales and marketing of Lenddo.com.ph, Mr. Earl Martin Velencia President and CEO of Ideaspace and also students from the UST College of Engineering.
Mr. Paul Rivera is the one who created Kalibrr, it’s the world first massive open assessment and training platform that gets people jobs. It is the first Filipino startup to be accepted into the Silicon Valley based incubator program. Prior to starting of Kalibrr, Mr Paul Rivera was a co-founder of a pioneering BPO company called OpenAcess with clients such as Friendster and Stumbleupon. He is a visionary who believes making things happen.
When asked about what inspired him on creating Kalibrr. Mr. Rivera explained “The story that inspired me are the young college graduates who were applying entry level jobs but did not have the right skills to be employed, and I remember some of them are crying and begging just to get the job but I couldn’t hire them because I was not designed to train people on skills but I was designed to employ people who have skills.”
He added, “Some high school graduates would also show in my office and they will all fail the interview because they don’t know how to use acomputer beyond Facebook. I felt that all of these skills could be developed if someone will give them the opportunity. If they had the skills, they can easily break in the fastest growing industry (BPOs) in the Philippines.”
“So it’s really that the people that I encountered a lot that cried in my office that inspired me to try to change this because if these young people don’t get the job that I’m creating then what sort of job that they will get? They will likely end underemployed.” It become an inspiration for Mr. Rivera to help individuals which became the primary goal of Kalibrr where a jobseeker can be trained online and have a simulation on what skills and knowledge they should have to be qualified for the job
On the other hand, Ms. Erika Aquino of Lenddo talked about on how Lenddo works. She explained “That they also cater the emerging middle class and young people who have dispensable income. One big problem that we are trying to address is really the lack of access to credit or good financial education by the Filipinos in general.”
“So those are the things that we don’t necessarily have access though and we don’t want people to mismanage their funds as well. So at Lenddo, we promote this and we do credit scoring based on your social network.”
When asked if how they do credit-scoring. She explained “We have an algorithm by our data scientist based in New York. They look at huge pieces of data that people provide us openly from there we can gage whether a person how credit worthy a person is. So let’s say I pay my loans on time, I share this much information about myself, from there Lenddo can give me a score which can be used to loan money from the company.”
“We can do credit scoring faster unlike on banks. Everything is done online so it’s really convenient on the part of the costumers, they don’t have to leave their office or home. They will just go online and access www.lenddo.com.ph. They will just sign in and connect their Facebook accounts and fill out an application form that takes about 10 minutes and we‘re in to arrive of the credit decision within just one business day. So that’s it and they get their funds in their bank account.”
Ms. Erika concluded that borrowers just need to be trusted and establish their credit rating through colleagues, friends and relatives. Their primary goal is not to drown people in debt but rather help them with their finances and educate them the value of money.
Lastly Mr. Earl Velencia who founded Ideaspace was able to talk about how do we think of new technology and share it to the Philippines because what we think of the future is actually present already. Ideaspace is a non-profit organization that aims to help budding young technology entrepreneurs to establish their business models, groundbreaking innovations and transform these into successful business.
Ideaspace delivers a support program to local technology entrepreneurs who bear awesome ideas that exhibit potential as a solid investment and the foundation for nation building. They also promote a culture of innovation and meritocracy, helping to push a new economy on the Philippines that is driven by science and technology.
Students were also able to chat with the guests and exchange their personal ideas. They were able to tell their own projects which include online flood and traffic monitoring website, Yolanda App and the LRT platform warning device.
Ms. Marya Magno, an organizer of PasICSlaban asked for some advice from the guests. They encourage the students to do the things that should be done after graduation. Mr. Paul Rivera added that “To do the impossible, you have to see the invisible”. This means that you should see what others can’t in order to be successful.
Overall, the episode for the day was splendid and inspired the students and the listeners on how great ideas and great plans can bring solutions to our country. This only shows that technology can help aid fellow countrymen on lifting their lives.
For more information visit www.kalibrr.com, www.lenddo.com.ph and www.ideaspacefoundation.org.
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