In the little island archipelago of Philippines in Southeast Asia—millennials are driving a dynamic economic transformation. Over 50% of the working-age population belong to the millennial generation, most of which is being absorbed by micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), accounting for more than 99% of enterprises in the Philippines.
“It’s not just another coffee. It’s just coffee. What that means is we are paying people the right price for the right amount of labor. This goes into improving their livelihoods and economic status,” Joji Felicitas Pantoja said with piercing verve, before sipping a cup of fresh brew made by one of the coffee farmers she’s trained and now buys coffee from at fair-trade price.
IIX’s Impact Accelerator, an intensive acceleration program that provides mentorship, seed capital and ongoing advisory services to four Philippines-based Impact Enterprises over a period of six to eight months, successfully concluded in September 2015. Throughout the program, IIX and Shujog staff, as well as external experts, provided customized training and mentoring to each enterprise on specific key needs areas that were critical for their sustainable growth. Impact Accelerator culminated in Impact Showcase at the Asian Institute of Management in Manila, Philippines, which provided the enterprises with the opportunity to pitch their businesses to potential investors and local ecosystem partners. Impact Showcase attracted fifty-two guests, including angel investors and twenty different organizations.
I recently returned from a trip to the Philippines, where I was visiting the four winners of IIX’s Impact Accelerator program. Throughout the trip, I was constantly inspired by the passion of the social entrepreneurs and the sacrifices they endured in order to start their social venture. As I sat in a water pumping station in Orani Bataan, a town three hours outside of Manila, chatting with Stephen, the CEO of Hiraya Technology Solutions (a pioneering water enterprise that developed an advanced pressure management system to help water service providers adjust water pressure while reducing water waste), I started to become acutely aware of the enterprise’s key needs and the support it required to scale. This was an exciting challenge, but also a sobering one – it reminded me of the important role that Impact Accelerator plays in growing and scaling the impact of these innovative, early-stage enterprises.
