Victory in España: Filrobotics Technologies triumphs as the Grand Winner of TECH PLANTER in the Philippines 2024 Demo Day

True to this year’s #StrongerAt8 mantra, the TECH PLANTER in the Philippines 2024 program strongly culminated through its TECH PLAN Demo Day in the Philippines 2024 last May 11, 2024 (Saturday) at the Frassati Auditorium of the Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati Building, University of Santo Tomas, España Boulevard, Sampaloc, Manila City. The Demo Day event served as avenue for all deep tech research teams and startups, comprising the nine (9) Finalists and six (6) invited Lightning Talk session, to highlight their passion and innovations through their pitch presentations and the conglomeration of academia, corporate and the government to thrust a supportive Filipinodeep tech program. Leave a Nest Group also acknowledges and shares its sincerest gratitude to all of the Program Partners of TECH PLANTER in the Philippines: Focus Systems Corporation (Japan), SOHBI KOHGEI (Phils.), Inc (Philippines and Japan), Ezaki Glico Co., Ltd. (Singapore), The Law Office of Flores & Ofrin (Philippines), PLDT Inc. (Philippines), the Department of Science and Technology – Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (Philippines), QBO Innovation (Philippines), ZUS Coffee (Official Beverage Partner), and e27 (Official Media Partner).

Prior to all the pitch presentations, Mr. Juan Miguel Esguerra, the pitch representative of Team Biocoat-Z, which was the TECH PLANTER in the Philippines 2023 Grand Winner, delivered the Keynote Speech to share their journey as the 2023 representative of Philippines in the TECH PLANTER and all the Leave a Nest related opportunities they were able to utilize in Philippines, Malaysia, and Japan. He was able to inspire the teams to look beyond the competition and encouraged them to make use of the Leave a Nest platform to achieve their goals as a team – like what they did as Team Biocoat-Z.

Guided by the program’s core of addressing deep issues through science-backed technologies with a heart, all team pitchers bared their own personal and team missions, the social issues they target, their solutions and their forward-looking plans to hold the line as a team and as collaborators to this year’s program partners and organizers. The Leave a Nest Group and its partners celebrates all of the teams who have undergone the Philippine TECH PLANTER process from application, to several mentoring sessions, up until the Demo Day event. 

Emerging on top, the startup from España, Filrobotics Technologies Inc. was hailed as the Grand Winner of the TECH PLAN Demo Day in the Philippines 2024. Filrobotics Technologies aims to locally develop an autonomous navigation system for agricultural machinery which impacts the increasingly  laborious and unconducive working conditions of Filipino farmers and the shrinking agricultural labor sector, due to various factors related to climate change, economic, and other factors. Find the other program highlights and awardees below: 

TECH PLAN Demo Day in the Philippines 2024 Awardees

GRAND WINNER: Filrobotics Technologies, Inc. Technology Theme: Developing the AGROTIS Navigation System compatible for automating  agricultural tractors with GPS Award Inclusions: PHP 50,000.00 Cash Prize and an Invitation to present at the TECH PLANTER Asia Final 2024 Reason: The TECH PLANTER in the Philippines Judge Panel believed that Filrobotics Technologies has a perfect combination of the following: processing new opportunities in deep tech, appropriate technology as an agritech in an agricultural country, great potential in achieving long term and significant impact and aligned into a future with autonomous vehicles.

LEAVE A NEST AWARD: Dali Innovative Solutions, Inc. Technology Theme: Using artificial intelligence for analyzing weather and natural disaster indicators with the concurrent power generation capabilities Award Inclusions: Invitation to present at the TECH PLANTER Asia Final 2024 Reason: Leave a Nest hopes that their team can represent Philippines in the Asia Final to highlight two major deep issues, energy and disaster preparedness, that are overlapping between Philippines and the other ASEAN countries in order to find more collaborators and supporters from the region.

FOCUS SYSTEMS AWARD: Team HESS Technology Theme: Creation of an home intelligent energy management and storage system with artificial intelligence and machine learning Award Inclusions: PHP 30,000.00 Cash Prize Reason: Due to the importance of tackling the existing energy issues and data use and protection in the Philippines, Focus Systems believe they can collaborate with HESS for ensuring secure cloud information management.

SOHBI KOHGEI AWARD: Bambuhay Technology Theme: Developed Plantable Toothbrush after use to address plastic pollution, deforestation and poverty in line with circular economy principles. Award Inclusions: PHP 30,000.00 Cash Prize Reason: Aside from Bambuhay’s current business status, SOHBI KOHGEI is interested in the noble pursuit undertaken by the team and its impact on the next generation of Filipinos.

FLORES & OFRIN AWARD: Team BellyBond and Team LITHOS Manufacturing OPC Technology Themes:  (for Team LITHOS Manufacturing OPC): Natural zeolite and bentonite processing team with clay nanotechnology applications in the field of wastewater, veterinary and animal feeds and aquaculture and  (for Team BellyBond) Developing a local fetal heart rate monitor Award Inclusions: Free Incorporation Support and other legal services relevant to startup teams Reasons:  (for Team LITHOS Manufacturing OPC): With a great potential and as an OPC, The Law Office of Flores & Ofrin believes they can help in pushing further the team’s business  (for Team BellyBond): The Law Office of Flores & Ofrin hopes to support their team due the longer journey as a biomedical device startup (e.g. clinical trials, patents and other  intellectual property rights application)

BEST USE OF TECHNOLOGY AWARD (from PLDT): Team Filrobotics Technologies, Inc. Technology Theme: Developing the AGROTIS Navigation System compatible for automating  agricultural tractors with GPS. Award Inclusions: 1-year use of PLDT Innolab Co-working Laboratory and Complimentary Innolab Merchandise Reason: Their technology has great potential, good use of Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, and possibly be a good opportunity for co-development with PLDT. Their team vision is also heavily aligned to PLDT’s expertise and their Digital Farmers Program.

For more details related to all the Finalist and Lightning Talk teams who pitched during the event and all the Judges who participated in the program, you may check out this related news article: Planting Soon: TECH PLANTER in the Philippines 2024 Demo Day taking its root tomorrow! 

FINALLY, CONGRATULATIONS AGAIN TO ALL THE WINNERS, PITCHERS, AND APPLICANTS OF TECH PLANTER IN THE PHILIPPINES 2024!

The TECH PLANTER Asia 2024 season continues until July 2024 with both Malaysia and Singapore Demo Days to be conducted this May 2024 and Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand Demo Days on July 2024. Stay tuned to our website and social media channels for more details!

Seeping through the localities, the Leave a Nest Philippines is also spearheading the conduct of the first-ever local TECH PLANTER program within a specific Southeast Asian country with the launch of Visayas TECH PLANTER. This program is open exclusively to deep tech research teams and startup based or affiliated in the Visayas Region of the Philippines. Don't miss this opportunity and head out now to the following news article for more details: Start of the many firsts: TECH PLANTER BLOOMS IN VISAYAS THIS 2024!

Moving forward, we are hoping for a rallying support for both teams, Team Filrobotics Technologies Inc. and Team Dali Innovative Solutions, Inc., during the TECH PLANTER Asia Final to be held in MALAYSIA on AUGUST 24, 2024, and for all the TP teams as we continue our quest of connecting these teams to advance these changemarkers’ deep tech innovations! Our team is already currently open for partnership discussions and interest for applications for next year’s TECH PLANTER in the Philippines 2025 program. For any inquiries or questions, feel free to contact us at “[email protected]” or Bryan Foronda ([email protected]).